


Heir of Heart

by KalicoFox



Series: Just Thoughts [4]
Category: Homestuck, Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Crossposted from Spacebattles, Gen, Or so Cronus says, Sharing headspace with dead aliens, She's a good looking seadweller, Taylor the seadweller, partnerships, this is honestly more of a fusion than a crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22143016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KalicoFox/pseuds/KalicoFox
Summary: Taylor's trigger gives her something she needed more than anything else in her life- a support system.Also, powers.Many,manypowers.
Relationships: Taylor Hebert & Cronus Ampora
Series: Just Thoughts [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/863988
Comments: 71
Kudos: 217





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I am going to wipe Homestuck all over Worm. No, I haven't actually _read_ Worm. But I've read a bunch of fanfiction, (mostly lighter stuff, real life is grimdark enough for me at the moment,) and the whole Parahuman thing gives my bunnies lots of good stuff to work with, so I figured I'd give this a shot.
> 
> Please enjoy my formatting. It was a pain in the ass. I think y'all can figure it out, but just in case, the further to the right a piece of dialogue is aligned, the less aware Taylor is of it.

_"Vwhat the… hey, vwhat's going on? Vwhere am I?"_

The sound of another voice, nearby and unexpected, made Taylor jump, banging her head on the low ceiling of the locker she'd been crammed into hours ago. 

_"Ovw! Hey, vwatch the goods!"_

Someone was there. _There was someone out there._

"Hello? Please, you gotta help me I've been in here for hours! Please let me out! _Let me out,_ **_please!_ **"

Desperation, and the stress from screaming, and puking, and screaming some more made her voice crack on the last word, and she felt hysteria rising again, climbing up the back of her throat and starting to choke her with the urge to start screaming and never stop.

"Please, I heard you, I know you’re there, _please just let me out._ "

Silence.

Tears of helpless frustration streamed down her cheeks, and she sobbed once, hard, before, 

_"Hey, uh, doll? I think you and me, vwe'vwe got a problem."_

  


What.

A _problem??_

The only _problem_ here is that she’d been stuffed into this stupid, goddamn _locker,_ with literal stinking, rotting _garbage_ , and left here!

Rage lent her tired limbs strength, and Taylor twisted as best she could, slamming her heel into the door with an enormous banging sound that made her ears ring.

The _problem_ , is that some pompous _asshole_ with a stupid, wavery fucking _accent_ was standing right outside her fucking _prison,_ and wouldn’t. Let. Her. **_Out._ **

Each thought was punctuated with another kick, the garbage cushioning the metal against the worst of the impacts.

 _ "Try bracin' yourself," _ The asshole suggested, his voice worried, _ "hands against the back like you're goin' to do a push up, an' back up against the door." _

Oh yeah, like that'd work. It’s not like she'd fucking _tried_ that before.

But apparently assholes can sense hesitance, because he didn't even wait for her to object before insisting.

_"Look doll, you gotta vwork vwith me here. Just try."_

_“This is ludicrous…”_

" _Fuck_ you and your 'just try'," she snarled, but braced herself and started to push. "You vwanna be helpful, go get a fucking janitor," something metallic groaned, "or a bolt cutter," unnoticed, the metal under her fingertips dented, "or hell, _call the fucking cops_ ," something shrieked and buckled, a breath of fresh air rushing into the fetid locker, "but don't. Tell me. To just. _Try!"_

The hinges of the locker door gave way with a pair of shrieks loud enough to wake the dead, and the sudden loss of pressure sent Taylor spilling out of the locker and onto the floor.

 _“Fuck!_ ”

  


For a moment, Taylor just lay there, sucking in lungful after greedy lungful of fresh (eh), clean ( _eh)_ air. 

She twitched violently when something with many legs skittered across the bare skin where her shirt had ridden up. That was all the reminder she needed of what she was laying in, and her stomach twisted emptily against itself.

“Oh god,”

Scrambling to her feet was easy enough, but a combination of the way the garbage had been smeared on the walls of the locker and her violent ejection from the confines of that same locker had ensured that she had a thin film of stuff she _was not going to think about_ on pretty much every inch of herself.

_“Hey, doll, someone’s comin’.”_

This time the twitch was more like a flail as Taylor spun wildly in place, searching for the asshole who had, _somehow_ , helped her out of the locker.

There was no one there.

The hallway was completely empty, but, faintly, she could hear footsteps. Heels clacking against the shitty linoleum.

_“Time to beat feet.”_

_“I’m sure if we just_ explain _i_ _t would all 8e fine…”_

The hallway was still empty, but the footsteps were getting closer, and she _really_ didn’t want to be seen here, like this. Having so many people see her getting shoved in was bad enough, but _this…_

No.

She was going home. Fuck this noise.

As quietly as she could manage, Taylor turned and sprinted down the hallway.

_“Is um,,, going home like this going to be,,, okay?”_

Wait.

Fuck, she can’t go home like this. She probably looks like a murderer or something.

Crap…

A quick change of direction had her heading toward the gym, and, more importantly, the locker rooms. She’d be able to grab her gym clothes and at the very least rinse off.

A passing glance at a wall clock told her that it was the middle of third period, which, aside from telling her that she’d missed lunch, was a relief. No one would interrupt her shower if she was quick about it.

  


As soon as the locker room door had thumped shut, Taylor was stripping, almost tearing the filthy, reeking clothing off of herself and leaving it where it fell as she beelined for the shower. 

She didn’t even bother waiting for the water to warm up, just cranked it on and stepped under the spray with clenched teeth.

It… wasn’t terrible.

Which, what? It was January, in New England. Home of pretty terrible winters. How was the water not like liquid _ice?_

_“Pff, like a little cold vwater’s goin’ to phase a vwiolet…”_

Taylor paused, then scowled and stuck her head directly under the spray.

There still wasn’t anyone around, and she _refused_ to go insane. All she had to do was ignore the voice until it went away and she’d be fine.

_“Nowv that’s just rude…”_

The vaguely hurt tone in the voice made her grit her teeth, but she shook her head and forced herself to ignore it.

She would _not_ go insane. She refused to let the Bitches win.

Scowl deepening, she reached up to start scrubbing her hair, hoping that she’d be able to work the worst of it out even without shampoo.

Something hit her in the head.

“Vwhat the—?”

Spinning around revealed that the shower stall door was still shut, and poking her head out showed that the locker room was still empty, so what…?

Cautiously Taylor reached up again, aiming for where she’d felt the hit. Her eyes widened when her fingers met a smooth, faintly ridged surface.

“Vwhat the hell?” she breathed, carefully tracing the wave-shaped whatever it was that was sticking out of her head.

 _ “Only the best set of headgear any seadwveller could ask for,” _ the voice said, sounding smug.

Set?

Oh…

Questing fingers easily found another one on the other side of her head, tracing the exact same pattern as the first one while an extremely unwelcome thought gradually made itself known.

Thicker at the root? Check.

Tapering to a point? Check.

Rooted firmly in her skull? A slight tug made that point _excessively_ clear.

“I have _horns?_ ”

 _“Got it in one, Chief.”_ The voice was very _definitely_ smug.

Fucker.

 _“You might vwant t’ rinse your gills real good too,”_ it added, _“I don’t evwen vwant to think about the kinda shit you mighta got all up in them in there.”_

Taylor froze.

Her _what???_

  


She. Had gills. 

Two sets actually, one small set on either side of her neck, and another, larger set that ran along her ribs near where her lungs were. From what she could see of them they _looked_ fine, and the voice assured her that they would be quite excruciating if anything substantial was stuck in them. She wasn’t convinced; nothing she’d ever read had said that _purple_ — _ “Vwiolet!” _ was a natural color for the tissue on the inside.

Also, her skin was grey.

And her fingernails had turned _yellow._

  


Discovering that there was _quite_ a significant difference ‘downstairs’ was enough to have her shutting the water off and grabbing a couple of the tiny, shitty towels that the school stocked in the locker rooms.

_“Bring the evidence,”_

Ten minutes later Taylor was on the sidewalk, her destroyed clothing and shoes tied into a garbage bag she’d stolen from the roll the janitors usually kept tucked in the bottom of the bins, under the ‘in use’ bags. Her gym clothes weren’t the most comfortable; the shirt was straining across the shoulders, and the sweatpants kept wanting to slide down, but she could deal with that. The fact that the cold, damp concrete was having no effect on her bare feet was a little more off putting, but she could deal with that, too. She just had to get home and she’d be able to change.

Except… Every person she’d passed had looked at her with wide, startled eyes. Twice now she’d seen people cross the street rather than pass her on the sidewalk. _Could_ she even go home, looking like this?

_“So vwhere’re vwe goin’, doll?”_

Taylor said nothing, but her footsteps faltered for a moment.

_“Ah. Gonna just vwalk until somethin’ pops up?”_

“Do you have any better ideas?” Taylor grumbled, and made an abrupt turn. Maybe going downtown would help her figure out what to do.

 _“Nah doll, I’m just here for the ride. Although…”_ the voice trailed off, _“You live near the ocean?”_

“Yeah. Vwhy?”

_“You could go for a svwim. Make sure those gills’re vworkin’ right.”_

“It is the first of _January!_ The vwater can’t be more than forty degrees!”

_“So?”_

“So I’ll _freeze_!” Taylor hissed, then snapped her mouth shut as the person she’d been coming up behind jumped, looked over his shoulder at her, and then blanched.

_“Nah.”_

Something in Taylor’s mouth crunched as she grit her teeth and counted to ten.

“ ‘Nah’, _vwhat_?” she demanded when she thought she could talk without shouting.

_“You’re a seadwveller. You might vwanna eat more after, but cold vwater ain’t gonna be a problem.”_

Taylor blinked, interested despite herself, “Really?”

_“Sure as shootin’.”_

Humming thoughtfully to herself, Taylor glanced in the direction of the coast. It would take some walking, but it wasn't like she didn’t have time, and it would give her a chance to figure out what to tell her dad.

And how to tell him.

“So vwhat’s a seadwveller, anywvay?” She paused midstride for a second, then scowled ferociously, “And vwhy the hell am I talking like that?”

 _“It’s the teeth,”_ the voice said, only mildly apologetic, _“It’s a pain in the ass, I knovw, but double ‘u’s are hard when you got the dentition of a fuckin’ shark.”_

This time Taylor really did stop, glancing around before reaching up to feel her own teeth.

“Holy _shit_ ,” 

_“Cool, right?”_

“That’s one vword for it,” Taylor muttered, and ignored the feeling of smug amusement from the voice in her head.

“Vwhat’s your name, anyway? I can’t keep calling you ‘asshole vwoice in my head’.” She asked after a couple of blocks had passed in relative silence.

_“Cronus Ampora. Pleased to meetcha.”_

“I’m Taylor,” She glanced around again, making sure no one was in earshot, “Taylor Hebert.”

 _“Not Ampora?”_ Cronus seemed startled.

“No, vwhy?”

_“You’vwe got Ampora horns.”_

Taylor blinked.

“Vwhat?”

A sensation very like a sigh drifted through her mind, and Cronus seemed to settle in.

 _“All trolls have horns, but not all horns are the same, you dig? All horn shapes run in bloodlines, so only_ that _bloodline vwill have that particular horn shape. Your horns are shaped like mine, and my dancestor’s. So you’vwe got Ampora horns, vwhich makes you an Ampora.”_

Slowly, Taylor nodded. It made a certain sort of sense, but, “But I’m human.”

 _“Vwere human,”_ Cronus corrected, then corrected himself, _“I mean, you can still be human on the inside, but outside? You’re one dolly of a seadvweller.”_

“Somehowv that doesn’t exactly make me feel better,” Taylor muttered dryly. “And vwhat the hell’s a seadvweller, anyway? Or a troll? And vwhy are you in my head? And—”

 _ “I get it,”  _ Cronus interrupted, _ “Jegus, it’s like you’re vwritin’ a damn book…” _

His mental voice dissolved into muttering that Taylor couldn’t quite understand, and she got the impression that if he could he would be pacing.

_“All right, I’m not the greatest at explanations, but I’m vwhat you’vwe got right nowv, so I’ll give it a shot._

_“A long time ago, in a completely different univwerse, there vwas a planet called Beforus…”_

Taylor listened as Cronus wove a tale of time travel and alternate universes and aliens, her skepticism growing as the story got more and more complicated.

Frogs? Chess pieces? Resetting the entire _universe_ by scratching a disc?

It was all completely unbelievable.

 _“Yeah, it vwas pretty vwild,”_ Cronus agreed, and Taylor frowned as sand crunched under her feet.

“Vwait, that’s it? They just opened the door and created a new univwerse?”

_“Yeah.”_

“And they didn’t take you _vwith_ them?”

Cronus was silent for a moment, then laughed, quietly. _ “Kitten, I’m  _ dead _. The dream bubbles could only exist in the Medium, outside the univwerse.” _

“Or maybe,” Taylor suggested tartly, “you’re my powver, and I’m so deep in denial that I just made up all of that stuff to rationalize the vwoice in my head.”

Taylor had never known that it was possible to _feel_ someone sulking, but Cronus was introducing her to _all sorts_ of new experiences, and she was hard pressed not to smirk as she poked around the beach.

Eventually she ended up tossing the bag next to a rocky outcropping and piling a couple of smaller rocks on top of it before turning to look at the steel grey water.

“So howv does this vwork?” Taylor asked, and got a scoff from Cronus.

_“So I’m real enough to get advwice from, but not to beliewve?”_

Oh for… 

“Are you serious?”

 _ “Hey, don’t ask me, I’m just a figment of your imagination, remember?”  _Cronus’ voice was sulky, with a faint undercurrent of hurt that made Taylor slump.

“Okay, but evwen _you_ have to admit that random vwoices in your head is usually a check in the ‘crazy’ box,” 

_“...”_

“Cronus?”

_“Take the shirt off.”_

“ _Vwhat?_ No!”

 _ “Then suffocate,” _ Cronus said tartly, _ “It’s too tight to let your rib gills vwork right.” _

“But vwhat about these?” Taylor touched the gills along her neck gently, and felt Cronus roll his eyes.

_“Those’re secondaries. They’ll vwork if you aren’t mowving, or if you’re drifting, but vwon’t pull enough air out of the vwater for you to breathe if you’re really mowving. They're basically there for talking and sleeping.”_

Taylor hesitated for a moment, then started marching resolutely toward the water.

 _ “Taylor?”  _ Cronus sounded worried, _ “Taylor, doll, I vwas serious, you’ll die. You hawve to take the shirt off!” _

The water lapped at her feet, and inwardly she marvelled at how the water felt. Not icy. Not even unpleasantly cold. Just a bit cool, like a swimming pool.

_“Taylor!”_

A few more steps took her to the point where the retreating waves didn’t leave her feet in open air.

The push and pull of the waves against her legs made her hesitate again, but she steeled herself and allowed the next outgoing wave to pull her further out.

Instinct had her ducking under the next incoming swell and pushing off from the shifting sand as best she could.

One stroke, then another, and Taylor was pretty sure that even if she stood her head wouldn’t break the surface of the water, so she paused.

 _ “Take a breath,”  _ Cronus said, his voice neutral over a thread of barely contained worry, _ “like this.” _

Something in her throat twitched, showing her the muscles that needed to be moved.

Obediently, Taylor opened her mouth and _breathed._

It felt like nothing she’d ever felt before. Like something was blocking off access to her lungs as water passed smoothly through her mouth and out along the sides of her throat.

It was a little gritty; she was still close enough to the shore that the waves were stirring up sand, but heading further out would fix that. But first…

Quick movements had the shirt over her head and tucked carefully in the waistband of her pants. Her bra wasn’t in the way of the gill slits, so that stayed in place, and Taylor ignored the sigh of relief from Cronus as the current passed water over and through the larger slits.

 _ “You can open your eyes, you know,”  _Cronus sounded wry, and Taylor scowled.

“I don’t vwant sand in my eyes!”

_“You’re vwilling to scare the crap out of me and risk suffocatin’, but you don’t vwant sand in your eyes? Girl, open your damn eyes.”_

Grimacing, Taylor cracked one eye open, then, when she felt nothing but the cool wash of water, the other.

“Huh.”

_“Yeah, huh. Behold the vwonder and glory of a third eyelid.”_

The water was dim, and all of the sand swirling with the waves made it hard to see, but, and here was the kicker, she could _see._

Actually…

“Did I leawve my glasses at school?”

Cronus shrugged, and Taylor sighed, then kicked off the bottom. She’d come out here to swim, so she might as well _swim._

The yelp that echoed through the water as she rocketed away from the beach had Cronus nearly in hysterics.

It only took her a moment to stop, but that one movement had taken her _much_ further than it should have.

_“You didn’t notice that you vwere stronger?”_

“No,” Taylor grumbled, kicking softly to move forward at a more sedate pace, “howv vwould I? I vwasn’t vwrecking anything before. Nothing broke.”

 _“Except your locker door?”_ Cronus asked pointedly, and Taylor flushed, _“should I evwen ask if you realise that you’re talkin’ undervwater just fine?”_

Taylor paused, opening her mouth to say something scathing, then shut it again and back paddled to halt her forward momentum. “I thought it was just a vweird powver thing…”

_“Doll, you’wve been speakin’ Troll this vwhole time.”_

“Vwhat?”

Cronus sounded _far_ too amused. _“High Beforan, actually, like a proper seadvweller. Not that it really matters; evwen on Beforus the hemospectrum scene vwas played out.”_

“Howv havwe I been speaking a language that doesn’t evwen _exist_ ?” Taylor demanded, and now that she was paying attention, there _was_ a distinctly hissing, chittery undertone to what she was saying. “God, no _vwonder_ those people looked so freaked out! Not only do I look like an absolute _freak,_ but I sound like a horror mowvie monster!”

_“Hey!”_

“Oh shut up,” Taylor snapped, “This is all your fault to begin vwith! If you vwerent’ in my head, I could still be _normal_ —”

_“And stuck in that locker?”_

Her mouth snapped shut.

That’s right.

If Cronus hadn’t shown up, who knows how much longer she would have been stuck in the locker.

If she hadn’t gotten powers…

A deep breath helped her wrestle her temper under control.

“Sorry. That vwasn’t… I didn’t… I’m sorry.”

Cronus said nothing, and, slowly, Taylor flipped over and headed toward the bottom of the bay.

Everything was different underwater. It was darker, and murkier, and _louder_.

Clanging from the docks, the thumping sound of engines, the rhythmatic _‘ping’_ of sonar, and, underneath it all, a deep unceasing thunder that only barely ebbed and flowed. It should have been overwhelming, but something in Taylor relaxed, letting her float in long limbed ease amongst the noise.

  


Small schools of fish swam here and there, darting away whenever she got too close, and several small octopuses slunk over and around the rocks littering the bottom of the bay.

_“Oh! Urchins!”_

Cronus’ sudden exclamation made Taylor startle, a full body twitch spinning her around in the water to stare up at the surface.

“Vwhat?”

 _ “Sea Urchins,”  _ he said impatiently, _ “those round vwhite things, they’re  _ delicious _.”_

Taylor flipped back over, shoved her hair out of her face, and scanned the bottom.

“I knowv wvhat they _are_ ,” she said, “but vwhy is it important?”

 _“They’re a fuckin’ delicacy, that’s vwhy!”_ Cronus said, _“I havwen’t had any in_ svweeps. _Quick, go grab that one before that crab gets it.”_

He paused for a moment, then, _ “Actually, grab the crab too. You should eat more, doll.” _

Taylor drifted lower, letting her feet float higher as she examined the sea urchin and the crab that was approaching it with malice aforethought.

“How vwould you evwen cook that?” She wondered, idly tapping the urchin with one yellow fingernail.

(And when had those grown so long?)

Cronus recoiled, _ “Cook it? Kitten you don’t  _ cook _ a good urchin! The fresher the better!” _

Taylor’s nose wrinkled. “Ugh, no thanks. And I think that crab might be too small.”

_“Too small?”_

“Yeah. There’s laws and stuff about how big things have to be before you can take them. To give them enough time to breed or something, I guess.”

_“Oh. Vwell that makes sense. Vwhat about that one?”_

Taylor sighed, rolling her eyes.

“I’m not going to eat rawv seafood, and vwe don’t havwe a vway to get it back to shore vwithout just turning around and svwimming back.”

Cronus sighed longsufferingly, and Taylor rolled her eyes again, flipping herself around and peering through the rapidly dimming water toward the surface.

“Vwe should probably head back, anywvay.” she mused, “I still havwe to figure out vwhat to do about evwerything, and it’ll be dark soon.”

_ “Really?”  _ Cronus sounded interested, and a feeling like a grin rippled through Taylor’s mind. _ “Vwant to see something cool?” _

“Um...Sure?” 

_ “Close your eyes and do this,” _

Something indefinable flickered in her head, like she was flexing a muscle she’d never had before, and, after a moment, Taylor tried to copy the feeling.

_ “Not quite. Try like this,” _

It flickered again, and again Taylor copied the feeling.

Outside of her closed eyes, something lit up.

_ “There you go… take a gander.” _

Slowly, Taylor opened her eyes, then gaped.

Thin bands of purple _ (Vwiolet!)  _light spiraled up her arms, starting at her fingertips and wrapping in glimmering swirls all the way up past her shoulders.

Frantically, she looked down, examining herself and finding that the same swooping spirals curled down across her chest and vanished beneath the waistband of her sweats, only to reappear again around her ankles and fade across the tops of her feet.

“I’m glowving,” she said numbly, and Cronus laughed.

 _ “Howv else vwould you see vwhen you go deep?” _

“Is it anywhere else?” She asked, running an exploratory finger along one of the lines. It didn’t feel any different from the rest of her skin; but she almost thought that the light brightened a little as her finger passed along the path.

 _ “Your back, probably,”  _ Cronus sounded unconcerned, _ “And around the edges of your face. Ear fins too, that’s pretty normal.” _

Taylor nodded absently, twisting her arm to keep following one path. “And I can turn it off by doing that thing again?”

_ “Mhm. So vwhat do you say, doll, vwanna givwe going deeper a shot?” _

Taylor hesitated, looking contemplatively toward where the current was bringing fresher seawater into the bay, then back toward the shore.

“Vwe shouldn’t… Dad will be really vworried…” She waited a moment longer, then turned resolutely away from the current. “Tomorrowv. I’ll come out tomorrowv.”

  


The trip back to the shore was a remarkably quick one, and Taylor hugged the bottom of the bay as best she could, reveling in the way her bioluminescence lit up the swiftly darkening water with a pale violet glow. 

“It’s beautiful.”

 _ “Yeah, it is,”  _Cronus said, sounding wistful, and Taylor slowed for a moment.

“I thought you hated being a troll?”

Cronus shrugged, _ “Vwouldn’t you miss hawving a body?” _

Ouch. Taylor winced. He had a point. If he actually _was_ a real person, then he was basically imprisoned in her head, completely unable to interact with the world. It sounded like some sort of hell.

 _ “It ain’t that bad,”  _ He said, _ “just… different. Better than the dream bubbles, at least.” _

“What were the dream bubbles like?” She asked, aiming upwards to try to catch a wave to ride toward the large patch of rocks that would neatly block the sight of her from the shore.

 _“Static,”_ Cronus said flatly, _“dead people can’t growv or change, and the only places vwe could go or see vwere places vwe’d gone or seen vwhen vwe vwere alive. Evwen vwhen vwe thought vwe vwere doing things different, it vwas the same patterns.”_

Taylor shuddered as her feet touched the sandy bottom and she skipped forward a few steps with the force of the wave behind her.

“That sounds horrible…”

 _ “It vwas better than not existing, or bein' eaten by the horrorterrors,”  _ Cronus sighed, _ “And vwe got to meet our dancestors. Some of them vwere pretty funny, and Meenah’s little dancestor vwas one hell of a dolly.” _

Taylor snorted, wading the rest of the way out of the surf. “Well, when you put it that way it _must_ not have been that bad…”

It took a moment to remember the right way to flex the weird combination of muscle and intent that controlled her bioluminescence, but after a few seconds it faded away, leaving no sign of it behind on her pale grey skin.

Someone whistled, low and impressed behind her, and Taylor jumped, spinning in place as a cross between a hiss and a snarl rattled its way out of her chest, the bioluminescence flaring abruptly back to life.

 _“Holy—!”_ Whoever it was stepped back fast, hands up and placating.

“Jesus _fuck_ ,” Taylor shouted, her heart pounding, “vwho the fuck even just vwalks up behind someone like that? Vwhat the _fuck_ is your problem? Holy fucking _shit_ I almost fucking _die—_ oh shit you’re Assault. _”_

And so it was.

“Hey sorry about that,” Assault said easily, keeping his face pointed carefully away from her, “didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s fine,” Taylor grumbled, doing the peculiar flex to turn her bioluminescence back off and going to step around the hero to try and retrieve her bag of clothes.

A hand on her arm stopped her, and she tensed.

“You uh, might not want to do that,” Assault told her, still not looking directly at her.

What was his deal?

 _ “Could be that you’re still not wearing a shirt, Kitten,”  _Cronus snickered, and Taylor jolted like she’d been burned, yanking herself out of Assault’s grip and swearing under her breath as she yanked the soaking wet shirt out of her waistband and wrestled it on.

It ended up tearing in a couple of places; her fingernails easily ripped the fabric when she tried to rush, but eventually she got it on and more or less settled and turned back to Assault, her face burning.

“Sorry,” she muttered, then glanced up at him when she heard a faint crackle.

“Hey, so, do you speak english?” he asked, smiling easily once he’d glanced over and seen that it was safe to look.

Taylor blinked.

“Yeah? Of course I—” a thought struck her, and she squinted, trying to listen to her own words. “Testing, testing, Sophia is a bitch on vwheels and _fuck me I’m still speaking vwhatever the fuck goddammit.”_

Scowling, Taylor held up one hand in a ‘wait’ gesture and cleared her throat.

 _ “Try looking at him vwhile you talk?” _ Cronus suggested, and Taylor scoffed.

“This isn’t Harry Potter and the Troll Apocalypse,” she grumbled, staring at Assault as she tried to figure out how to switch back to speaking english, “I’m not a fucking parselmouth. That isn’t even howv languages v _work_ , vwhy the hell vwould looking at the species I’m trying to communicate vwith—”

Assault abruptly relaxed, his smile widening as Taylor cut herself off.

“Oh. It vworked.”

“So you _do_ speak english,” Assault grinned at her, “great, that makes this a lot easier.”

_ “Told you so,” _

“Um, yeah. Hi. Sorry about that.”

Assault waved her off. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve seen weirder.”

Taylor arched one eyebrow, and feeling a bit sardonic, flickered her bioluminescence.

Assault’s grin widened, “No seriously, there’s some _really_ weird parahumans out there, even in the Protectorate.”

“Right.” Taylor’s voice was dry, “vwell, thanks for keeping me from flashing the boardwvalk, but it’s getting dark and I still need to figure some stuff out, so…”

Assault nodded, stepping out of her way as she moved to walk around the rocky outcropping.

“About that, would you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?”

Taylor hesitated, then shruggged. “Go for it.”

“Great! First question, do you happen to have a tattoo or marking anywhere on your body that looks like this?”

A card was held out to her, and Taylor took it, easily seeing the image of oddly shaped ‘u’ in the fading light. 

“Nope,” she handed it back to him, “nothing like that on me.”

“Any memory issues?”

“Uh uh.” 

Taylor didn’t know where he was getting these questions, but if they kept being as weird as those ones were, then as soon as she found her bag of clothes she was taking off.

“Third, what’s with these? They look pretty nasty.”

A plasticky rustling sound made her heart sink, and Taylor slowly turned to see Assault holding up the bag she’d been looking for.

“Those are mine,” she snapped, grabbing at the bag.

Assault surrendered it easily. “I’m not going to take them,” he assured her, “But people were kind of worried. We were getting calls about a scary looking parahuman walking around with blood stained clothes in a bag. The trail of calls ended here, so someone awesome was sent out to see if you wanted to chat.”

He peered around curiously, “I don’t suppose you’ve seen him, have you? Kind of a badass, likes to dress in red? Funniest hero on the east coast?”

Despite herself, Taylor snorted, her lips tugging up into a reluctant smile.

His smile softened, becoming a little more genuine as he leaned back against the outcropping, heedless of the damp.

“So, _do_ you want to chat?”

“I…” Taylor hesitated, then, tentatively, _^Cronus?^_

 _“Up to you, doll,”_ His voice was gentle, _“you’re the one vwho’s goin’ to havwe to livwe vwith the decision.”_

Taylor hesitated. Telling people had never done anything before, but she _was_ going to have to explain everything to her dad… maybe a test run would help?

“A year and a half ago, my best friend decided that she hated me,” Taylor started, fiddling with the knot on the plastic bag.

Assault listened quietly, his easy smile falling from his face in favor of grim blankness. When she got to the part about how her mother’s flute had been taken from her locker, he started frowning.

When she got to describing the locker, he swore, once, vehemently, then clenched his mouth shut and gestured for her to go on.

“So I thought, maybe if I vwent for a svwim I’d be able to figure something out.” she explained, “Figure out howv to explain to my dad that I’m suddenly a cape vwithout givwing him a heart attack, or howv to live my life nowv that I look like _this_ ,”

Taylor gestured to herself, and Assault’s lips tipped up in a wry smirk of acknowledgement.

“No thoughts about getting revenge on those girls?” he prodded casually, “getting even for the hell they put you through?”

Taylor hesitated. 

Before she’d broken her way out of the locker, she _had_ thought about that. About getting revenge on them and making them hurt the way she’d been hurt. Now that she had powers, she _could_ do it. She could hurt them _so easily._

But…

“Yes…” she said slowly, and pretended to ignore the way Assault stilled, “and no.”

“I don’t vwant to hurt them,” she said slowly, trying to sound out her thoughts, “Or I mean, I _do,_ but… I vwant them to _pay._ I vwant them to understand exactly vwhat they put me through. _Personally._ And I can’t do that. I can’t make that happen. I don't think anyone can.”

Assault hummed thoughtfully.

“People say that the best revenge is living well,” he suggested, and Taylor grinned at him, enjoying his blink of surprise at her shark-like teeth.

“Yeah, my mom vwould say that too, but her vwersion had a corollary: ‘So that you can rub it in their faces _as often as possible’._ ” 

The burst of surprised laughter from the hero made her smile widen, and she was still grinning when he’d recovered.

“Fair enough.” He paused for a moment, rubbing his hand over the visible part of his face as he thought, “Tell you what, you just got your powers today, right? Do you want to come over to the Rig and do some power testing? See if you can figure out what all you can do?”

  



	2. The Docks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which not much happens, but people go places.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this one is pretty short, and I'm sorry about that. I _had_ , at one point, twelve pages typed up. And then I realized it was a disaster and I was writing myself into a corner. So here's this. We're getting closer to the point at which more stuff will eventually become clear.  
> Clear as mud.
> 
> I am so good at this. /sarcasm
> 
> As with last chapter, the further aligned right a piece of dialogue is, the less consciously aware of it Taylor is.

The docks were cold, and damp, and  _ echoingly _ empty.

To most of Brockton Bay, that alone was enough to avoid them. Add in the hundreds of derelict warehouses, a steady stream of drug addicts and vagabonds and the fact that two out of the three major gangs in the city had claimed the place as their territory, and no sane person would even usually  _ think _ about going there.

“Are you _ sure _ you want to be dropped off here?”

Assault peered dubiously out the window of the PRT van as it rolled between a pair of particularly decrepit buildings, and Taylor hid a smile.

“It’s fine. My… I knowv a few people vwho vwork here. They should be able to help me out.”

Assault’s skeptical look broke her self control, and Taylor grinned at him. 

“I’ll be fine.”

“Jeeze…” he flinched, then sighed, shaking his head ruefully. “Yeah, all right. All you’d have to do is smile and half the Merchants would book it.”

Her smile faded a little. 

“Not that that’s a bad thing,” he continued blithely, “I wish  _ I _ could make Skidmark want to pee himself with a look.”

The snort of laughter caught Taylor off guard, and Assault looked pleased with himself as his passenger dissolved into surprised laughter.

“Vwouldn’t that happen any time he looked in a mirror?” Taylor asked, and this time Assault let out a bark of surprised laughter.

“Oh you’re definitely my new favorite,” he informed her. “You need anything, or if your parents don’t take all this well, go down to the PRT building and tell them I sent you. I’ll help you get stuff squared away, all right?”

Taylor blinked.

That was…

Wow.

She nodded hesitantly, “All right… Oh,” abruptly she recognized one of the buildings they were passing; a staging area for some of the larger rigs, and sat up. “Here is fine.”

Frowning, Assault pulled to a halt and stuck the van in neutral as Taylor grabbed her bag of clothes and hit the seatbelt release.

“Thanks for the ride,” 

“No problem,” Assault waved her off as she slid out of the van, then a thought occurred to him. “Hang on a sec!”

“Hmm?”

“You mentioned earlier that those clothes were in your locker with you,” 

Taylor winced at the reminder, but nodded hesitantly. “Yeah.”

“What were you going to do with them?”

For a moment she just looked at him, then she glanced down at the bag and shrugged. “I don’t knowv. Probably just throw them away. I don’t even knowv vwhy I brought them vwith me, honestly. Vwhy?”

“I can take ‘em,” Assault offered, “the PRT’s got the resources to dispose of hazardous materials, and those probably qualify by this point.”

This time the wince was more pronounced, and she tossed the bag into the footwell of the passenger seat.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. You should maybe stop by the hospital and get checked out too,” he cast another uneasy look around the shadows of the barely twilit docks, then, “are you  _ sure _ you’ll be all right? I don’t mind taking you home. Or at least somewhere closer to wherever you live.”

“I’ll be  _ fine _ , I promise.” Taylor said, rolling her eyes and closing the door. 

Assault watched her as she vanished between the buildings she’d had him stop by, then sighed, glanced down into the passenger seat’s footwell, and pulled away.

Taylor waited until she couldn’t hear the van’s engine anymore before heaving an enormous sigh of relief.

That could have gone  _ so much worse. _

“Some help you vwere,” she grumbled quietly.

Cronus sent her a feeling like a shrug.

_ “You did fine on your ovwn. And besides, did you really vwanna try to havwe a three vway convwersation vwhen you’re the only one vwho can hear me?” _ __

“Not really,” Taylor admitted, and glanced around.

_ “Vwell there you go,” _ Cronus’ voice was smug,  _ “ain’t I polite?” _

“Yeah,” Taylor said dryly, “you’re a real stand up guy, Cro. Real svwell.”

The spluttering from the part of her mind that Cronus apparently lived in was  _ beautiful _ , and Taylor grinned as she set off toward the administration building.

It wasn’t far, only a couple of buildings inland, and then a few more back toward the town proper, but the long Taylor went without seeing or hearing anyone the more nervous she got.

What if her dad didn’t recognize her?

What if he didn’t believe that she was who she said she was?

_ What if he was afraid of her? _

_“Relax.”_ Cronus’ voice cut through the spiraling train of thought like a knife, _“Breathe Kitten, you need to relax.”_

_ “Just think about something else!  _ _ That always works for me!” _

She could see the front doors, and through them the well lit lobby of the administration building.

Wait. Taylor blinked, then twisted, turning so that the building was behind her and she was staring down what should have been a dark space between two of the warehouses. Should have been.

“Howv’m I still seeing everything?”

The smug made a reappearance as Cronus supplied the answer.

_“Trolls’re nocturnal, doll. Somethin’ somethin’ our atmosphere vwas too thin to filter out all of the radiation or somethin’,”_ he shrugged, _“I didn’t really pay much attention to that part of schoolfeedin’.”_

Taylor blinked. 

Nocturnal. Huh.

That was… something.

“Maybe vwe should go experiment vwith this,” she murmured, taking a step away from the administration building, “it could be really useful. Howv dark is too dark to see? Can I still see—”

_“Your lusus.”_ Cronus interrupted, _“I mean dad. Vweren’t vwe goin’ to go see him?”_

Taylor froze.

“Um.”

Cronus was unimpressed.  _ “Really doll? You vwere all fired up about seein’ him earlier. Vwhat changed?” _

“Nothing!” Taylor protested, “I do still  _ vwant _ to see him, but figuring out vwhat I can do is important too!”

_“And somethin’ you could do later.”_ Cronus pointed out, _“Maybe evwen better, if your lusus knowvs stuff you could use or places to go.”_

“That’s not the  _ point! _ ”

Something scuffed against the ground behind her, and Taylor froze.

“Oh? Well, why don’t I help you figure out whatever it is you’re looking for so that you can be on your way. You’re making the boys around the Yard nervous.”

She’d only heard that note of detached, icy politeness in her father’s voice a couple of times, and at no point had it ever bode well for the person on the other end.

Shit.

She could still make a break for it. She was reasonably sure that she was faster than her dad was, even on land...

_ “Yeah, I’m SO sure that’ll end well…” _

“Well?”

Taylor cringed and, slowly, turned around.

“Hi Dad…”

* * *

  
  


“What did you find out?”

Assault sighed, his usual smile nowhere to be seen as he slumped into the seat across from Director Piggot.

“She’s a new trigger,” he told her, “according to her, she was stuffed in a locker with garbage and locked in. She triggered, busted out, scrubbed down in her school’s locker room, and took off. I already took the clothes that she said she was wearing in the locker down to the lab to get tested, but…”

Director Piggot’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“That’s the part you’re not going to like,” Assault smiled humorlessly, “apparently getting stuffed into a locker is the culmination of about a year and a half’s worth of bullying. Girl named the three ringleaders; Madison Clements, Emma Barnes, and Sophia Hess.”

A muscle in Director Piggot’s jaw tensed, and Assault waited.

“Sophia Hess.”

Assault nodded.

“Barnes… that name sounds familiar too,” she frowned, then turned back toward her computer and clicked rapidly through some files, her frown deepening as she scanned them. “Alan and Emma Barnes acted as character witnesses during Sophia’s hearings.”

Assault nodded again, his face carefully neutral.

“Is there any other evidence?”

He shrugged, “Aside from her clothes and trigger? We could see about checking with the school to see if anyone reported anything, but it’s  _ Winslow _ . Kid could get shanked in the middle of a packed hall between classes and nobody sees anything. Not even the faculty.”

“Christ…” Piggot scrubbed her hand over her face, “how likely is it that the girl will go after them? If she thinks they’re responsible for putting her through hell, then…”

“Eh,” Assault waggled his hand side to side. “She  _ said _ she wasn’t interested in revenge. Not directly, at least. Apparently she wants them to feel exactly how they made her feel, but... hang on, I think I can remember how she said it… something like ‘I can’t make that happen. I don't think anyone can’. She seemed pretty calm about it.”

“That’s unnerving,” Piggot said flatly, “and you’re saying she claimed to be a new trigger?”

“Yeah. Not in those words, but yeah. She was weirdly accepting of  _ everything _ . She even razzed me about seeing weird stuff by  _ glowing _ at me. If she  _ is _ a new trigger then she’s probably one of the most stable, well adjusted new triggers on the planet.”

“Christ,” Piggot said again, looking like she would very much like a drink. 

Assault waited, watching the thoughts flitting across his boss’ face. After a moment, she picked up her phone and hit a button.

“Edith, please have Armsmaster come up as soon as possible.”

Putting the phone back down, Director Piggot fixed Assault with a gimlet eye.

“Now. When Armsmaster gets up here you are going to start at the very beginning and tell us everything. Then we’ll decide if we need to arrange discreet surveillance on the civilian identity of one of our wards.”

Shit.

Assault sighed, and settled into the uncomfortable chair as best he could.

This was going to take a while.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny is taking this all rather well.

Danny watched his daughter.

They were home now, and Taylor had explained everything, and now he was sitting here, trying to process all of the information that his daughter had dumped on him, watching her argue with a voice in her head.

It was  _ unbelievably _ weird.

“No, I don’t think that’d vwork either,” Taylor said, and Danny winced in sympathy at the way her teeth seemed to catch at her lips with the ‘w’s. “He can’t go diving vwith us, and vwe’vwe already showvn him the glowing, so vwhat else is there?”

She paused for a second, then rolled her eyes. “I’m not breaking anything just to provwe howv strong I am. That’s stupid.”

Another pause, and this time she scoffed. “That’s not even a real vword.”

“No it’s not!”

A moment later she was turning to him, her grey-on-yellow eyes pinning him in place. “Dad, vwill you please tell this idiot that there’s no such vword as ‘specibus’?”

Danny blinked.

Was this what having multiple children was like?

“No, it’s  _ not _ you—”

Hearing her dissolve into an unnerving cacophony of chittering hisses and hair raising warbling was… well, unnerving.

It was also another point tentatively in the column that his daughter hadn’t actually lost her mind when she got her powers and she really  _ had _ managed to get an alien stuck in her head. He’d never heard of a parahuman getting an entirely new language with their powers, but, well, stranger things had  _ probably  _ happened?

His musing was interrupted by Taylor growling something and reaching out like she was trying to grab something, and Danny was left gaping as a bright blue rifle fell out of  _ thin air _ and landed in her hands.

Taylor looked intrigued and hissed something, then winced, glancing sideways at him, and cleared her throat.

“Cronus says that apparently I inherited his ‘strife specibus’, whatever that is, and his weapon. This, apparently, is called Ahab’s Crosshairs.”

She blinked, then frowned, “You are never going to convince me that that stupid book somehow had a troll equivelent. Never. I refuse to believe that that travesty was created  _ multiple times. _ ”

Abruptly, it was all too much. This was  _ insane. _

Taylor had parahuman powers. Taylor had an alien in her head. Taylor’s  _ best friend _ had been torturing her for over a year. Taylor was, even now, contemplatively hefting the gun that had  _ appeared out of thin air _ in her arms.

Taylor bore only a passing resemblance to the daughter he’d sent off to school that morning.

And he had missed  _ every single bit of it. _

  
  


Something in the room shifted, and Taylor dragged her attention away from her new ( _ shiny, pretty weapon of moderate destruction _ ) and back toward her dad.

He’d been quiet throughout her entire explanation, and she’d  _ thought  _ that he was taking everything pretty well, but apparently that was just because he’d been processing it all.

Now, his face was a mask of devastated guilt, and she had  _ no idea how to handle this. _

“Dad?”

Nothing.

“Dad?” 

Cronus nudged her, and, acting on automatic, she slid the Crosshairs back into the specibus. 

Somehow, that got him moving again, and Taylor squeaked as she found herself swept up off the couch and into a crushing embrace.

“I am  _ so sorry, _ ” he mumbled into the hair between her horns, “I’m sorry I wasn’t here, I’m sorry you had to go through all of this on your own, and I’m sorry that you felt like you couldn’t tell me what was going on. But Taylor, sweetheart, all of that changes now. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

Tentatively, Taylor wrapped her arms around her dad and felt him take a deep, shuddering breath before clinging tighter.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her eyes watering, “I’m sorry too. I should havwe said something vwhen they ruined mom’s flute. I should havwe-”

“No, Taylor no.” Danny pushed away from her, holding her shoulders and looking down at her sternly, “Well, all right, yes, you should have said something to me when they started destroying your things,  _ but _ ! I should have been more here for you. I should have noticed something was wrong. More wrong than… Than after Annette’s passing.” He swallowed hard, his eyes glistening. “We’re still here, and if your mom could see how I’ve let you down for the last couple of years she’d kick my ass to a peak, then kick the peak  _ off _ .”

Taylor gaped at him for a second, then started laughing, the unexpected curse from her dad jolting her out of her self recrimination. A moment later, Danny tugged her back up against him, his own deep chuckles vibrating through his chest.

“How about it,” Danny asked once their laughter died away, “think you can forgive your fool of an old man and give him a second chance?”

This time Taylor was the one to push away, looking up at her dad with an arched eyebrow. “That depends, can  _ you _ forgivwe your idiot of a daughter?”

“I think that’s doable,” Danny agreed, then smiled crookedly as a low gurgle erupted between the two of them. “On a completely unrelated note, are you hungry?”

“ _ God _ yes,” Taylor exclaimed, and disengaged from the hug to dart across the room into the kitchen where the drawer of takeout menus lived.

“Can we havwe Fisherman’s Market?” Her voice floated back to him as a drawer slid open, then slammed shut, “Cronus vwon’t  _ shut up _ about seafood, and nowv I’m hardcore cravwing fish and chips.”

“Sure,” Danny agreed bemusedly as he followed her into the kitchen.

“Ooo, and scallops! And chowvder! And  _ shrimp _ oh my god I havwen’t had shrimp in  _ forevwer _ and maybe vwe should get some oysters, too, oooo, or vwhat abou-”

“Hooold your horses there, Little Owl.” Danny plucked the menu out of his daughter’s hands and smothered a laugh at the betrayed look on her face as he cut her off.

“Two things, max. Don’t forget they come with sides, okay? And you know most of that stuff doesn’t reheat well.”

“The chowvder does,” Taylor pointed out, making a grab for the menu back. 

Danny twitched it out of her grasp and grinned at her as she pouted outrageously at him.

“Two things.”

Taylor rolled her eyes. “Fiiiine,”

“Thank you,” 

The menu was deposited neatly back into her hands, and almost instantly Taylor was back to perusing it, muttering half a conversation under her breath as she talked to Cronus.

Danny just sighed silently and resolved himself to a lot of very confusing half-conversations in the near future.

  
  


Eventually, Taylor settled on the fish and chips she’d been craving and the clam chowder that she knew would reheat well enough if she couldn’t finish it, and Danny called their order in. It only took a couple of minutes, and the woman on the other end of the phone assured him that it would be ready soon.

“So, uh, we’ve got a few minutes before I need to head out to pick that up,” Danny said, hanging the phone up and turning to his daughter, “Could we… could we talk?”

Taylor blinked, a tiny frown creasing her brow, but nodded. “Yeah, sure. Vwhat’s up?”

A hip bump slid the drawer she’d been stuffing the takeout menu into shut, and she leaned against the counter, watching him curiously.

“Well, I didn’t quite think our earlier conversation was over,” Danny admitted, “more just, paused for the moment.”

Taylor’s frown deepened. “Vwhat else is there to talk about? I’m sorry, you’re sorry, Emma’s a bitch that I’m nevwer going to see or speak to again, and nowv I’m a cape.”

Danny arched an eyebrow at her. “How about we start with ‘what are you planning to do now that you’re a cape?’ then head over toward ‘what are we going to do about Winslow?’ because I’m pretty sure you don’t want to go  _ back _ there, and then top it all off with ‘tell me more about Cronus and the things he’s been telling you’.”

Taylor bristled, then deflated, “Oh.”

Danny hesitated, then leaned his shoulder against the wall next to him, watching Taylor with tired, worried eyes.

“I’m not saying we have to talk about it all right now. I need to go get the food in a couple of minutes anyway, but I just… I have questions, Little Owl, and I don’t want to make decisions about you without your input.”

Taylor nodded slowly, some of the tension leeching out of her shoulders, “Okay. Yeah. That all... That all makes sense. I guess if it was you, I’d have questions too…”

She huffed an incredulous breath of laughter, and Danny smiled crookedly.

“Like I said. Keep it in mind, okay? We  _ will _ be talking about this stuff.”

“Yeah, fine.”

Hardly daring to believe how well that went, Danny made his escape to his truck and the promise of dinner.

And if he spent the drive there calling himself ten kinds of moron and generally venting his pent up rage about what Taylor had gone through, then that was between himself, the truck, and any gods that might have been paying attention.

  
  


_ “That vwent vwell,” _ Cronus said idly, and Taylor nodded.

“Vway better than I thought it vwould,” she admitted quietly, heading out of the kitchen and taking the stairs two at a time.

_ “So nowv vwhat?” _

“Nowv I get out of these clothes.” Taylor said, “And see vwhat I look like.”

_“Ohhh?”_ The leer in Cronus’ voice made Taylor scowl reflexively.

“You’d better keep your eyes shut while I’m changing!” She threatened, and got a bark of laughter for her trouble.

_ “Or vwhat, Kitten? I’m already dead, there ain’t much else to threaten me vwith.” _

The flush rising in her cheeks burned, and Taylor scowled harder, fighting to banish the embarrassed tears that had sprung to her eyes.

“You colossal  _ asshole _ ,” she hissed, stomping into her room and over to her closet. “Fine! I’ll change with my eyes closed,  _ happy now? _ ”

The snickering in the back of her head turned, abruptly, to contrition,

_ “Aww, Kitten, don’t be like that. I vwas just makin’ a joke.” _

“Vwell it wasn’t  _ funny _ ,” Taylor’s hiss took on an agitated rattle as she grabbed the first hoodie she saw off a hanger and swiped a pair of jeans off the floor. “Vwhat if you suddenly got turned into a human and I vwas living in  _ your _ head and threatening to stare at you naked the first time you evwer get to see yourself and  _ laugh _ at howv vweird are and make fun of you ‘cause you don’t knowv anything about howv humans vwork and howv stupid you look in your new body and—”

_ “BREATHE!” _

The sudden shout made Taylor swallow her next word, then take a huge, shuddering breath that came out as half sob.

_ “Been holdin’ that in long?” _ Cronus asked mildly, and Taylor scrubbed at her eyes with her sweatshirt sleeve.

“No.” 

More tears made their appearance.

“Maybe...”

_ “I ain’t gonna look. And evwen if I did, there vwouldn’t be anythin’ to laugh at. You’re an Ampora, and Ampora’s are all the Mother Grub’s gift to Troll kind. It’s a fact of nature.” _

The casual arrogance oozing off of that statement made Taylor hiccup a laugh, and after that it was like a dam had broken; peals of laughter rang through the house as Taylor clutched the clean clothes to herself.

Eventually, the laughter died down into hiccuping giggles, then into a vaguely relieved sort of quiet. 

Suddenly tired, Taylor leaned against the wall next to the closet, then slid down to sit on the floor.

_ “Feelin’ better?” _

“Yeah…” 

Her room looked so different from this perspective. The clothes on the floor, the books on her desk, her unmade bed, all of them seemed… different. Lighter somehow. Like she’d been so unhappy for so long that her room had absorbed some of it, and all the laughing had washed some of the built up misery away.

_“Good.”_ Cronus hesitated for a second, then, _“Your lusus is goin’ to be home soon,”_

“Nah,” Taylor leaned her head back against the wall lazily, “It’s still rush hour and the fish place is halfwvay across town. Vwe’vwe got a good tvwenty minutes still.”

_ “Enough time for a showver?” _

“Probably.”

She didn’t move, content to sit on the floor and let her eyes drift idly around her room.

_ “Kitten?” _

Taylor sighed, then grunted as she turned to lever herself off the floor. Muscles she hadn’t even known she  _ had _ were starting to ache, and the faint, itchy grit of the salt dried into her hair and on her scalp was really starting to bother her. 

“I’m going, I’m going…” she sighed, and stretched, and wandered out of her room.

The bathroom was… a bathroom. It wasn’t huge, and it wasn’t tiny. It didn’t sparkle with cleanliness like a show house bathroom might, but it wasn’t filthy, and it didn’t stink. A towel was flung over the shower rod, hung up to dry at some point, and Taylor dragged it down, tossing both it and her clean clothes on the floor.

This was it.

The moment of truth.

“Vwhat if—” she started, and Cronus cut her off firmly.

_ “Ampora, remember? At the vwery least you’re not gonna be hard on the eyes.” _

“Right.” Taylor took a deep breath, then another, and turned to look at herself in the full length mirror on the back of the door.

“Oh  _ vwowv, _ ” 

Cronus whooped in glee,  _ “Vwhat’d I tell you? One  _ dolly _ of a seadwveller! I told you! An’ you vwere all vworried about nothin’!” _

"Yeah, you told me," Taylor admitted absently, leaning forward to get a good look at the roots of her hair. "Vwait, is this streak  _ natural _ ?"

Cronus nodded.  _ "I dyed mine, but my dancestor left his alone. It looks good on you." _

The compliment came in a neutral tone, like he wasn’t sure how she’d take it, and Taylor nodded absently, backing off from the mirror and scrutinizing herself carefully.

"I think I'm taller," she said a moment later, and got a shrug from Cronus.

_ "Sorry doll, I vwouldn't knowv." _

Taylor hesitated, then, "Could you close your eyes?"

_ "Ganderbulbs firmly shut, ma'am!" _ A feeling like Cronus had clicked his heels and saluted smartly made her burst out laughing again, and, judging by the air of pleased amusement radiating from the back of her mind, that had been  _ exactly _ his intent.

“ _ Ganderbulb _ ?” She demanded, grinning widely as she shucked out of her holey sweatshirt, “vwhere the hell’d you get  _ that _ ?”

_“It’s what some trolls called eyes.”_ he explained, _“ ‘Cause there’s High Beforan, like what vwe’re speakin’, and Lowv Beforan. For some reason, Lowv Beforan ends up complicatin’ a lot of shorter vwords. Like fridge. In Lowv Beforan it’s ‘thermal hull’.”_

Taylor blinked, then frowned and focused.

“Say that again?”

_ “Vwhat, thermal hull?” _

This time she caught the difference, a slight downward shift in pitch and more hissing rather than the chittering that she’d heard when Cronus said ‘fridge’.

“That’s vweird.” 

Cronus shrugged,  _ “High Beforan vwas a vwater language. It ain’t much surprise that the land language vwas different, is it?” _

“No, that makes sense,” Taylor agreed, stripping off her sweatpants and kicking them into a corner, “I meant the ‘me understanding them both’ part.”

_ “Oh. Right.” _ Cronus shrugged again, all ‘what can I tell you’ about it, and Taylor rolled her eyes, took a deep breath to brace herself, and turned to look at herself full on in the mirror.

Grey skin, yellow finger and toenails, gills along her ribs and neck, those were all things she’d known about.

She hadn’t known that her horns were  _ also _ yellow, at least at the points. She hadn’t known that the color graduated from yellow, down through orange and all the way to  _ bright frickin’ red _ where they disappeared into her hair. 

Her eyes were yellow, too. Or rather, the parts that were supposed to be white were yellow, and her irises had turned a steely grey.

“I look like an olympic svwimmer,” She mused, her eyes tracing her broadened shoulders and the lean muscles cording her arms.

_ “Not surprisin’”  _ Cronus said,  _ “seadwveller, remember?” _

“Yeah,”

Even her  _ ears _ had changed, and Taylor turned her head slightly to get a better look at the flaring, finlike structure that branched off of what had once been the shell of her ear.

The overall effect, Taylor mused, staring at herself, was weird.

Her  _ boobs _ certainly hadn’t gotten any larger, she noted sourly, but once again, all it really did was make her look more like someone who spent a lot of time swimming. Like she was made for the water.

That spawned a thought, and Taylor peered down at her feet, spreading her toes out like she was trying to stretch.

“Huh… vwebbed toes…”

Still, aside from that, her feet and legs seemed pretty much the same. Maybe a little more muscle here or there, but otherwise she honestly couldn’t tell if there was much of a difference.

It was incredibly weird. Somehow, even though there were  _ so many _ changes, she still, somehow, looked like herself.

Her face was the same, even though her eyes were yellow and grey. Her hair was the same, even with the horns and the pur— _ violet _ — streak. She was still tall, and thin, and obviously  _ Taylor _ , just… 

A troll.

For a long moment, she stared at herself, drinking in the image and spotting more and more similarities as she looked. Here was a small patch of freckles that she’d always had, picked out in violet now, against her grey skin.

A mole just to one side of the slight indent that her belly button had become. 

The scar on her knee from a fall during an overenthusiastic roller skating attempt.

All of them were there. All of the little marks and physical memories that littered her body were still there, telling her in their own tiny way that this  _ was _ her.

It was disconcerting, but, at the same time, a relief, and the longer she looked, the more at home she felt. 

A moment later, she shook herself. There’d be time for getting to know herself later, and right now she was burning time she could be spending in the shower.

“So vwhat’re the horns for?” Taylor asked, tearing her eyes away from the mirror and turning to start the water for her shower. 

Cronus coughed.  _ “Ah, vwell… that’s… kinda been a subject of a lot of debate, actually.” _

Taylor blinked, pausing halfway into the spray. “Vwait, you mean you don’t  _ know?! _ ”

_“Trolls havwe been civwilized for a couple hundred thousand years at_ least _!”_ Cronus exclaimed defensively, _“You can’t tell me that humans knowv vwhy you havwe all the parts of_ your _bodies?”_

One eyebrow arched as she finished climbing in, Taylor opened her mouth to do just that, and Cronus cut her off.

_ “Appendix.” _

Her mouth clicked shut.

_ “There’s a lot of theories,” _ Cronus admitted,  _ “like, they’re for pacifyin’, or for pickin’ up vwibrations or usin’ psychic abilities better or vwhatevwer, but nobody could evwer really  _ provwe _ anything.”  _

“I’m guessing they aren’t vweapons?” Taylor asked, scrubbing carefully around the base of one.

_ “Nah. That’s actually about the only theory that’s been pretty much  _ disprovwen _. The roots’re too sensitivwe to impacts.” _

Taylor hummed thoughtfully and spent the rest of her shower mulling over the possibilities.

The front door slamming shut pulled her out of her reverie, and Taylor scrambled to get dried off and dressed, the scent of fried fish easily filling the house and making her stomach positively  _ roar _ .

By mutual agreement, dinner was eaten without talking about any of the stuff Danny had brought up before he’d left. Taylor honestly wasn’t sure she’d have been capable of coherent answers anyway; the combination of hunger and how much  _ better _ the fish and chowder had tasted made her practically inhale her meal.

After dinner, though, as they were cleaning up, Danny cleared his throat.

“So I was thinking that I’d call you out of school tomorrow.” he started, and Taylor turned to look at him, surprised, “I was hoping you’d come down to the docks with me. I have some paperwork to do, but while I’m working on that, I thought you might want to wander around and see if you can find somewhere we could use to see what you can do.”

The hand drying her bowl slowed as she thought about it. On the one hand, no Winslow. On the other, permission to poke around the docks, something she’d never had before on the few occasions she’d accompanied her dad to work.

“I’d like that.”

Danny smiled at her, tension draining out of his shoulders, and a comfortable silence settled over them. 

The rest of the dishes were washed and dried in short order, and, despite the fact that it was only just going on nine, Taylor found herself yawning. 

_ “It makes sense,”  _ Cronus said reasonably, _ “a lot of shit vwent dowvn today.” _

“Doesn’t mean I havwe to like it,” Taylor grumbled, and caught her Dad’s curious look.

“I’m just… really tired,” she explained, disgruntled, “Cronus said trolls are nocturnal, so I thought I’d be able to stay up later,”

Cronus snorted a laugh.  _ “Doll, bein’ nocturnal doesn’t make up for a sleep pattern.” _

“Yeah, vwell I get that  _ nowv _ ,” she grumped, and scowled at the faint smile that was lingering around her dad’s lips.

“Let me guess,” Danny said, still obviously fighting back his own amusement, “something about how sleep schedules trump biology?”

“Close enough,” Taylor grumbled, and tossed the kitchen towel through the handle of the refrigerator. “I’m going to bed, since neither of you twvo smart guys are being helpful.”

“Okay,” Danny agreed, his lips twitching, “Sleep well sweetheart, have good dreams.”

“Thanks.” Taylor snarled, “I lovwe you, good night!”

The sound of her footsteps stomping up the stairs couldn’t drown out the muffled laughter from the kitchen, and, halfway up the stairs, Taylor’s lips started to twitch.

By the time she hit her bedroom door she was giggling, and Cronus was  _ thoroughly _ bewildered.

“Don’t worry about it,” She cut him off before he could even start to form a question, and a note of indignation blended into the waves of confusion in the back of her head as she stripped down and fell into bed.

A few minutes of struggling with her pillows let her figure out a way that let her lay mostly normally without either pressing on her horns uncomfortably or perforating her pillows, and a couple of minutes after that, she was asleep.

  
  
  
  
  
  


_ There was a boy sitting at her desk.  _

_ On her desk. _

_ At her desk? _

_ It kept changing. One second he'd be sitting in the chair, half turned to face her, and the next he'd be perched cross legged on the desk, his pointy sunglasses turned down to look at something he was poking with a screwdriver in his hands. _

_ Taylor watched him. _

_ The boy in the chair watched her back. _

_ The version on the desk ignored her. _

_ For a few minutes, or hours, or maybe even days, Taylor watched him. She didn't try to talk to him; she didn't need to. Words didn't exist yet, and that was okay. She was content to wait and watch.  _

_ The boy in the chair never looked away from her. The boy on the desk never glanced her way.  _

_ "Why are you in my room?" _

_ The words came without warning, slipping out of her mouth without her even thinking about them, and the version of boy in the chair vanished as the boy on her desk looked up.  _

_ "Finally."  _

_ A flick of his wrist made the screwdriver disappear, and he stuffed whatever he’d been fiddling with into his pocket as he slid off her desk. _

_ “It took you long enough. Come on, you’ve got shit to do.” _

_ Taylor blinked, and suddenly they were somewhere else, high in the air. A skyscraper? A mountain? _

_ No, they were flying, weren’t they? _

_ “That’s not important,” the boy’s shades flashed in the moonlit sunlight as he turned to look at her. “Look down.” _

_ Taylor looked. _

_ Brockton Bay unfolded beneath her, a patchwork map of grey and brown and green that was covered in shifting blankets of smoke coming off of countless fires in the buildings and streets. She could see her school from here, the blue roofed spires jutting into the sky like fangs, and the hole behind it gaping like an open mouth. _

_ Out in the bay a broken, wooden hulled ship rocked gently in the waves. _

_ Something about that wasn’t right…  _

_ But no, it was fine. The Protectorate kept their ship in working order, no matter how it looked. _

_ “Welcome to The Land of Dreams and Starlight.” the boy said, looking out across the city.  _

_ Something shivered, and the quality of the light changed. _

_ No it didn’t, it had always been night.  _

_ Hadn’t it? _

_ The fires in the streets were probably enough for anyone to see by. It was fine. _

_ “Okay.” Taylor floated-stood-was held up for another moment as she looked down at her city, then, slowly, she started to drift downward. _

_ The boy followed her down, and their feet touched the ground at the same time.  _

_ "What's your name?" Taylor asked, but it wasn't important. She didn't need to know. He was there, and so was she, and the smoke from the fire burning at the end of the street blocked out the sky and— _

_ The boy was talking.  _

_ "-me's Dirk." _

_ Oh, he'd been introducing himself. That was polite.  _

_ "I'm Taylor."  _

_ Her voice sounded a little funny. Or maybe it always sounded like that? How was she supposed to sound again? _

_ Ugh. Thinking was hard, and she was getting cold. There was a fire right over there, maybe she could warm up.  _

_ Someone falls into step with her as she heads toward the fire.  _

_ It’s a boy with white hair and pointy sunglasses. _

_ He had a name, didn’t he? _

_ Does she know him? _

_ “Isn’t it dark with sunglasses?”  _

_ Dirk looks at her. _

_ “No.” _

_ Dirk walks with her, but doesn’t say anything. That’s okay. The fire is talking enough for both of them, crackling along in its cheerful fire way. _

_ The smoke is thick and cloying, and Taylor coughs as she stands near the flames. She doesn’t move away. _

_ The fire is talking to her, and she doesn’t want to be rude, and it’s cold away from the light.  _

_ Acrid smoke blankets her, and she coughs again, harder. _

_ It’s okay. The fire says it’s okay, so it must be. All she has to do is stay right where she is and she’ll be able to hear it more and more. _

_ Something doesn’t feel right. Is her chest supposed to hurt like this? _

_ It hurts. _

_ She can’t breathe. _

_ She  **can’t BREATHE—** _

Flailing wildly, Taylor jolted awake, her heart pounding as she gasped for air.

Slowly she managed to calm down, staring with wide eyes up at the ceiling of her bedroom.

What was  _ that _ ?

She’d been… suffocating? Burning to death? There’d been fire, she knew that for sure, but everything else, all of the details, were slipping away from her as she tried to remember the dream that had woken her.

_ “You okay?” _ Cronus asked, his voice tense, and Taylor nodded.

“Just a bad dream,” Taylor said quietly, “could you see it?”

Cronus hesitated, but didn’t answer.  _ “You should try goin’ back to sleep. If you’re goin’ to be vworkin’ vwith your lusus tomorrowv, you’ll need it.” _

“Yeah,” Taylor sighed, and slid out of her bed instead, stretching.

A slight breeze against her skin made her frown, looking around.

“Vwhat the…?”

Her window was open.

Just a crack, but considering the fact that it was freaking  _ January _ , she’d had it quite firmly shut for  _ months _ . 

So who had opened it?


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gamzee appears for three seconds and is promptly tackled back out of the story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a monster. Currently it's the longest chapter in this story, and I actually think it might be the longest chapter in *any* of my stories. That said, I wasn't expecting some of what happened, and it came through so beautifully that I felt like I had to leave it in. I hope you enjoy.

The next morning found Taylor, wrapped in a robe, sitting at the table with a sleepy scowl on her face as she stared down at her mug of tea.

“This isn’t going to be strong enough,” she mumbled, and got a chuckle from Danny as he passed.

“You could have some of my coffee,” he offered, pouring himself a mug and dropping a couple of pieces of bread into the toaster.

“Mrph,” Taylor grumbled, her face flat against the table. “Hot bean vwater is gross…”

“Ah, yes, of course.” Danny nodded sagely, cracking some eggs into a pan and stirring them rapidly with a spatula. “Because your leaf juice is so much better.”

One bleary grey eye peered dourly over at him as Taylor turned her head.

“ ‘scuse you, but this one has _flowvers_ in it.”

“My apologies,” Danny said seriously, “Because your _flowery_ leaf juice is so much better.”

“Mmph.”

Groaning, Taylor levered herself up and drained her ‘flowery leaf juice’ in a series of long gulps that left her gasping for air when she’d finished.

“It is,” she agreed, forcing herself to her feet and heading over to the coffee pot. “In evwery respect but one.”

Three quarters of the mug was filled with steaming coffee, and for a second she fumbled in the cabinet above the coffee maker, then pulled down a packet of cocoa that she opened and dumped in. Two spoonfuls of sugar and a slug of milk made up the rest of the difference, and Taylor stirred it vigorously for a moment before visibly steeling herself and taking a long pull from the mug.

Danny just watched the whole routine, a mildly amused look on his face as he made sure the scrambled eggs didn’t burn.

“Caffeine content,” Taylor sighed, returning to her seat.

“You sure you don’t mean sugar content?” He snarked, and got a weak growl from his daughter before sobering, “But seriously, are you all right? You aren’t usually this out of it in the morning,”

“Yeah, ‘m fine. Had a bunch of vweird dreams, that’s all.”

Danny nodded his understanding, and the two lapsed into silence.

It wasn’t until they were almost done eating breakfast that Taylor brought up a problem she’d noticed yesterday.

“None of my clothes fit,”

Danny looked up from his toast, startled, “What?”

“Vwell, some stuff does, like my underwvear and stuff, but my pants are too short and loose, and all of my shirts are too tight, and I gavwe my only pair of shoes to the PRT ‘cause of howv messed up they vwere, so I—”

“You… gave your shoes to the PRT?” Danny sounded strangled, and Taylor paused.

“Yes?”

Danny sighed, reaching up under his glasses to rub his eyes. “All right. Grab whatever you need out of my dresser. A belt should work just fine if the pants are too wide. We’ll stop and get you some shoes on the way, and see about some clothes shopping later, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks dad.” 

“That’s what I’m here for,” he joked, and got a grin out of Taylor. “If you’re done, go ahead and get dressed. I’ll clean up here and call Winslow, then we can go.”

It didn’t take Taylor long to find the softest, most comfortable clothing she could out of her dad’s dresser, but she took her time anyway, doing her best to ignore the way his voice raised as he spoke on the phone with Winslow.

It wouldn’t do any good. It never did.

_“It could be different this time,”_ Cronus offered, _“You’vwe got me nowv, and my specibus,”_

Taylor smiled mirthlessly, “Yeah, and they _can’t knowv._ No one can knowv.”

Cronus radiated confusion at her, and Taylor sighed, sitting down on her bed to roll up the cuffs of the pants she’d borrowed.

“A vwhile ago, when I was a kid, there vwere these heroes. They called themselvwes Newv Vwavwe, and they vwanted to spread a newv era of accountability in heroes. So they unmasked, in public. Shared their names and faces vwith the vworld.”

She paused, and, after a moment, Cronus nudged her gently.

_“Vwhat happened?”_

“A gang member, some guy without powvers or anything, tracked down the address of one of the members and murdered her.”

Taylor’s voice was flat and inflectionless as she continued, “He vwas killed, of course. His own gang crucified him in the street, supposedly as a message, but it vwas too late. Newv Vwavwe is the only group of unmasked capes on the east coast.”

_“But you’d be harder to kill than some normal human, nowv,”_ Cronus pointed out, and Taylor scoffed.

“Fleur vwasn’t _normal_ , she vwas a cape. And evwen if _I’m_ safe, vwhat about my dad? He’s still completely normal!” She shook her head, “No, it’s safer if nobody knowvs that I’vwe got powvers nowv. I just havwe to figure out howv to hide…”

_“Evwerything?”_ Cronus asked dryly, and Taylor groaned, but didn’t answer.

Stuffing a pair of socks into the pocket of the hoodie she’d swiped Taylor listened carefully for any hint of her dad’s voice before thumping downstairs.

“I’m ready!”

“Great,” Danny looked up from where he’d been waiting in his armchair, smiling at the sight of her in the too-large clothing. “Let’s go. I can give you the good news and bad news on the way.”

  
  


“Vwait, I’m _vwhat?”_

“Suspended,” Danny told her, his knuckles white around the steering wheel, “for destruction of school property.”

Taylor stared.

“They’re… punishing me… for havwing to _break out of my locker?”_

Danny winced as her voice rose to a shriek, but nodded grimly.

“Yeah, I pointed that out too, and that principal started acting… off.”

Taylor scowled ferociously, gritting her teeth. “She’s _alwvays_ off.”

“Does she usually try hinting that it would be better for your safety to switch to homeschooling?”

“Vwhat”

“Underneath all the bluster about the school billing us for the damage, it was ‘suggested’ that since you’re at the center of so many disturbances, we should look into homeschooling. It was heavily implied that expelling you would be the next step.”

Taylor’s mouth opened in outrage, and Danny cut her off.

“She seemed almost relieved to finally be speaking to me.”

“But…” Taylor’s head was spinning, “but that’s not right! She _nevwer_ believwes me! Nothing evwer happens!”

“And if you were slightly less stubborn and self sacrificing, I probably would have talked to her months ago, and something _would_ have changed,” Danny’s face was stony. “Unless you think I wouldn’t have done anything?”

“No, but vwhat could you do? The vwaiting list for Arcadia is a mile long, and—”

“And I’m your _father_ ,” Danny interrupted, glancing sideways at her, “There are _options,_ Taylor! Hell, homeschooling you is one of the _milder_ options! Before your mother died, we were discussing whether or not we should move away from Brockton entirely!”

“Vwhat? Dad no! We can’t _leavwe!_ ”

“And why not?” Danny cried, “This city is dying! It killed your mother, it could have killed you, and the only reason I didn’t notice is because it’s been killing _me,_ and you _saw that_ . You don’t owe this city your _life_ , Taylor; I _refuse_ to lose you too!”

His hand slapped the steering wheel, and Taylor stared at him, her eyes watering.

“But I don’t _vwant_ to movwe,” Her voice cracked, and she _hated that,_ and hated even more the defeated slump to her dad’s shoulders.

“Neither do I,” he admitted quietly, “But I have to do what’s best for _you_.”

“Then homeschool me!” Taylor cried, “I’ll come to work with you and do my work there, you know I can keep up, and I’ll keep my grades up and everything and—”

“And what about socialization?” Danny asked, “You can’t just hole up with me or by yourself all the time sweetheart, it’s not healthy. You have to interact with other people.”

“I’ll…” Taylor thought frantically, trying to figure something out, “I’ll join a theatre group or something, or go to the community center. There’s people there!”

Danny hummed thoughtfully, and some of the panic drained out of Taylor as it looked like he was considering it.

“You’d have to go at least once a week,” He said slowly, “and you’d have to _swear_ to tell me if you start having problems,”

“Deal,” Taylor said eagerly, and got a crooked smile from Danny.

“I guess we’ll have to clean up one of the empty offices for you, then,” he mused, nodding at the guard next to the gate they were pulling through.

The guard got a wide-eyed, startled look on his face when he spotted Taylor, but waved them through when Danny’s smile widened at the look on his face.

Danny’s office was on the third floor, and he set Taylor to clearing out the office next door to him, moving the boxes of miscellania from that office to the one across the hall. 

“If you’re serious about wanting to be homeschooled, then this will be your office,” Danny told her, “There’s a desk under there somewhere, I think, and probably a chair? You can decorate however you want, so once you get it cleaned out make a list of anything you think you'll need and we'll see what we can do.”

He hesitated, then pulled her into a quick hug, “I’ll be next door if you need anything, all right?”

Taylor nodded, and Danny vanished into his office.

_“So this is for us?”_ Cronus asked as Taylor looked at the stacks of boxes.

“I guess so,” 

_“Huh…”_

Sighing, Taylor pulled up her sleeves and grabbed the closest box.

“Might as vwell get started…”

Actually, despite the fact that Taylor was pretty sure all of the boxes were packed full, none of them were too heavy for her to move. Almost before she knew it she’d cleared out nearly half the room and made a clear path to the windows.

Flipping the blinds open made her wince as the late morning light streamed into the room, and Cronus snickered at her as she swore. Still, the light made the office seem a little less depressingly _office_ -y, and, after a moment, she opened one of the windows a crack. Maybe it’d help clear out the smell of musty cardboard and dust.

Taylor inhaled hugely as the scent of salt and metal filled the air, then relaxed as some of the tension inside of her loosened, then melted away.

_“Are we goin’ to go look around?”_ Cronus asked, and Taylor surveyed the room, then nodded.

“Yeah, we’re halfvway done. I could use a break.”

Quick steps took her out of ‘her’ office and to the door of her dad’s, and after a quick knock, Taylor poked her head inside.

“Hey dad? I vwas going to go do some poking around, okay? Vwe’re almost half done, and it’s kinda dusty, so vwe wanted to let it air out a little.”

Danny didn’t look up from his paperwork. “All right,” he agreed distractedly, “Don’t go into any areas marked employees only, and _listen_ if people tell you to stay out of an area.”

“Sure thing.”

“Good, have fun Little Owl,”

“Thanks! Be back in a while!”

A distracted grunt told her that Danny had been pulled back into his paperwork fugue, and, hiding a smile, Taylor headed down the stairs and out into the cloudy, misty morning air.

It only took her a few minutes to decide that wearing the hood of her hoodie _up_ was a good idea for more than one reason.

For one, it helped block out a lot of the diffuse light, and for two she got a _lot_ fewer suspicious looks when people couldn’t see her horns right off the bat. Making sure that her guest pass lanyard was _clearly_ visible also helped, and by the time she’d spoken to a few people, word was starting to spread.

“Hey, are you the chick with the weird accent?” The voice was loud, and Taylor reflexively turned toward it.

“Probably?” She said, eyeing the approaching woman cautiously, “Vwhat of it?”

The woman grinned at her, “Oh man, they were right, that’s one hell of a weird speech impediment you got there, kid.”

Taylor scowled and started to turn away.

“No no no, wait, I’m sorry!” The woman darted around her, pausing in front of Taylor with her hands raised in apology, “My mouth gets ahead of my brain sometimes, I’m sorry.”

Taylor crossed her arms, “Vwhat do you _vwant_ , then?”

The woman paused, her face flickering through a couple of emotions before settling on sheepish, “Um… I forgot?”

Taylor snorted. “Sure it vwasn’t just to check out my ‘vweird accent’?”

“No!” she yelped, “No no no, nooo… maybe?”

Taylor huffed, turning and taking a couple of quick steps away.

“Wait!” Rapid footsteps brought the woman back in front of her, and Taylor paused again. “Okay, so I mostly just wanted to see the new cape that everyone was talking about, and now that I say it out loud it sounds kinda shitty, so tell you what, what are you looking for? Maybe I can help you out?”

Taylor hesitated, and, in the expectant silence, her stomach rumbled loudly.

Heat rose in her cheeks as the woman laughed long and loud. “All right, the cafeteria it is! It’s on the west side, so…”

Taylor did her best to will the blush off her face as the woman laid out how to get to the cafeteria that served the entire workforce on the docks, and by the time she was finished Taylor had recovered enough to mumble a quick thanks.

The woman waved her off, smiling brightly.

“Don’t worry about it, it was my pleasure! Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

“Okay,” Taylor nodded and made her escape.

_“So, hungry, huh?”_ Cronus teased, and Taylor flushed again.

“Shut _up_ ! It’s your fault _anyway!_ I was never this hungry before!”

Cronus shrugged agreeably, _“Probably. I think vwe ate more than the humans did. Maybe.”_

He shrugged again, _“Or maybe you’re just gettin’ ready for your adult moult.”_

Taylor froze mid-step.

“Getting ready for my _vwhat?”_

_“Adult moult.”_ Cronus repeated, then frowned, _“Vwait, howv old are you, anywvay?”_

“Fifteen,” Taylor answered automatically, “vwhat do you _mean_ , _‘adult moult’??_ ”

_“Vwait, really? You’re only fifteen? Nevwer mind then, you’re fine.”_

“Cronus!” 

_“All right! Cool it! Jeeze, didn’t mean to rattle your damn cage. Trolls moult, that’s all. You’re already vwell past any vwriggler moult, so all you need to vworry about is the adult moult, an you’re_ vwiolet _. It ain’t gonna happen any time soon.”_

“Vwhy not?” Taylor asked, wandering down the streets toward the cafeteria.

_“ ‘Cause vwiolet lifespans are measured in the centuries?”_ Cronus said dryly _“And most vwiolets don’t moult until their thirties.”_

“Oh...Wait, does that mean I’m going to live for _hundreds of years?!”_

Her shriek rang off the metal of the buildings around her, and Cronus waited for the sound to die away before shrugging.

_“No idea. I’m operatin’ under the idea that you’re basically a troll, doll, but for all I know you could still be human in a troll suit. There ain’t really any way to tell.”_

“Right,” Taylor took a deep breath, “Okay, fine. Vwe don’t know. That makes sense. But vwe’re going to havwe to figure it out sooner or later, you knowv…”

Cronus nodded, then nudged her. _“Vwasn’t that the building she told you about? The cafeteria?”_

Taylor blinked, then glanced around and brightened. “Yeah, I think you’re right! Good, I’m _starvwing._ ”

A couple of bounding steps took her over to the door, and a sharp yank pulled it open as she inhaled deeply, hoping to get an idea of what the cafeteria was serving before she was confronted with having to make a choice.

Instead, a bitter, unfamiliar scent met her nose, and an unexpected sight halted her in her tracks.

  
  


People in masks, the kind that kept out chemicals and germs, not the cape kind, were bustling around tables lining the floor, all stacked high with white, plastic wrapped bricks.

Everywhere she looked, bricks were being opened, their contents scooped out and divided up into smaller quantities that were then sealed back up into their own packages and tossed into crates, or boxes, or briefcases. 

“Oh shit,” Taylor whispered, and took a step back.

If she could just get the door shut, then no one would-

_“Sopor?”_

The door squealed gently as she tried to swing it shut, and one of the people turned to look, her eyes widening as she saw Taylor standing there.

“Cape!” the shout was muffled, but still audible, and Taylor swore viciously as she slammed the door shut.

_“Sopor… Bitch, get us some of that sweet shit,”_

_“Like hell,”_

_“Oh,_ fuck me _,”_

Taylor made it three steps before her knees buckled and she hit the ground, a wave of dizziness making it impossible for her to tell up from down.

When it cleared, she was already back on her feet and moving again. She felt _incredible._ Strong, and fast; like nothing could even _touch_ her. She was _invincible!_

_“Not quite, bitchsis, but close e-damn-nough.”_

Taylor blinked, jolted out of the sudden rush of euphoria as she ducked around a corner and plastered herself to the wall.

“Cronus?” she whispered, “What happened to your—”

She was interrupted by a scoff of derisive laughter.

_“I ain’t no two bit pansy assed whiny little shit of a sweadweller, bitch. I’m the motherfuckin’ reason he’s so damn touchy about you callin’ him_ purple _.”_ A thin, dangerous smile slid through her awareness, _“Kurloz Makara, at your fucking service.”_

“There’s _more_ of you?” Taylor demanded loudly, then clamped her mouth shut as running feet nearby paused, then started creeping closer.

_“Can’t motherfucking tell you that yet,”_ Kurloz said flatly, _“I’m already pushing this bitch enough, so either get the fuck out of here or take these motherfuckers down fast before Cro gets his fucking head back on straight.”_

“How?” Taylor whispered frantically, and got an irritated growl in return.

_“Motherfucking wriggler bitches can’t even fucking use their messiahs damned powers yet I’m gonna have to sleep for a motherfuckin’ sweep to make up for this bullshit fucking_ fine. _”_ He took a deep breath, then another, and then, his voice suspiciously level, addressed her again. _“Fight or run. Pick fast, bitch.”_

Taylor’s mind spun. If she ran, she’d probably be safe. The docks were huge, and there was no way they’d be able to search the whole complex. 

But.

There were other people around. The guys who’d answered her questions about what certain things were for. The woman who’d laughed at her weird stutter, but pointed her in the direction of the cafeteria. The guards who’d waved at her on their way in.

If they found those people, would they be safe? Or would they start shooting at the first person they saw?

“Can I take them?” She asked, her voice barely a whisper, and got a snort.

_“By yourself? Fuck no.”_

That didn’t make sense, but she was out of time. A gun was poking past the edge of the corner she’d hidden around, and, judging from the hoarse whispering she could hear, whoever was holding the gun was talking into a phone.

She couldn’t let the people who’d been nice to her get hurt. She couldn’t let her _dad_ get hurt.

She _refused_ to run. 

These _fuckheads_ were in her _dad’s territory and ShE wOuLd SeE tHeM DRIVEN BEFORE HER—_

Wild laughter echoed between the buildings as an un/familiar weight fell easily into her hands.

“What the— _oh shit!_ ”

The crack of breaking bone was drowned out by a pained scream, and Taylor grinned widely as she sauntered out from around the corner to come face to face with the _ignorant fucker who thought he could threaten her._

“Bitch you broke my fucking _hand!_ ” 

Taylor blinked.

“ _Motherfucker, you’re lucky it wasn’t your_ skull,”

Huh. Was that her voice? It sounded… kind of cool. Sort of raspy, almost.

Oh.

The two bit thug was scrabbling to grab the gun in his other hand.

Hmmm.

One of her clubs flickered out, and he screamed, his collarbone shattered under the weighted strike.

Another hit, this time to his head, took him out of commission and the sudden silence meant that Taylor could hear the slapping of shoes against pavement coming toward her.

Voices were shouting back and forth, demanding to know what was going on and calling instructions from one person to another, and one voice, closer and tinnier than the rest, caught her attention.

Glancing around, she caught sight of the phone lying on the ground. It’s screen was cracked, but apparently the call was still going and Taylor grinned, scooping it up.

“Hey there,” she crooned, “what the fuck is _up_ my man?”

_“Bitch, what the fuck did you do to Jamie?”_

“Not one motherfucking thing,” Taylor lied, nudging the unconscious man with her toe, “Y’all motherfuckers should clear the fuck out.”

_“Fuck you, bitch!”_ The man on the other end of the phone sounded like he was about to start frothing at the mouth, _“do you know who the fuck you’re messing with? Our boss is gonna fuck you so hard your fucking_ granma _is gonna feel it!”_

Mild anger coalesced into icy rage, then crystallized into a deep, _dark_ amusement.

This drugged up fuck thought he could scare _her?_

_He didn’t know the meaning oF_ _fEaR._

“Bring it the fuck _on_ , bitch,” 

She hadn’t known that her voice could drop that low, and something about how she effortlessly crushed the smartphone was _so satisfying_ that for a moment she was tempted to just stay in plain sight. Let the stupid motherfuckers come to her and get fucked _right up_.

But they had guns, and she wasn’t bulletproof, so…

A couple of steps took her back around the corner, and she tucked herself into a doorway. It wasn’t as shadowed as she’d like, but combined with the dark sweatshirt she’d borrowed from her dad that morning it worked well enough that she was pretty sure she could conceal herself.

Her eyes slid half shut, and her head tipped back a little, letting her horns prop her head up as she _r e a c h e d o u t…_

And the dark aura of her chucklevoodoos _poured_ out of her.

A moment of thought, a flicker of will, and her shadowy little alcove was wrapped in the creeping unease that made eyes skip past; the subtle hint of wrongness that said _‘don’t look’_ keeping her body safe while she was focused elsewhere.

That done, it was time to _pLaY_.

****

Dauntless raised one eyebrow as he strode cautiously through the docks.

The fear effect that had been reported was still lingering, and every step he took toward what they’d determined as the center of the conflict increased it, but he pressed on.

“Assault, you didn’t say your girl could do _this_ ,” he muttered, zip tying yet another unconscious thug that shivered, whimpering at his touch.

_“Neither did she,”_ Assault’s voice was wry, with a thin undercurrent of worry that was audible even through the comms unit.

Another scream, piercing and terrified, echoed through the maze of warehouses, and Dauntless felt his heart jump into his throat as it abruptly cut off.

_“Same as the last few,_ ” Assault noted after a second of silence, _“did our ‘concerned citizen’ say how many there were?”_

Dauntless shook his head, pressing forward through the emotional miasma, “No. She didn’t want to get too close. Said it felt like looking over the edge of a cliff.”

_“A warning, then?”_ Assault mused, _“Maybe she was trying to keep people out of any crossfire?”_

“You’d know better than me,” Dauntless grunted, then stumbled as the pressure he’d been struggling against lessened, then faded entirely.

“Did you feel that?” He straightened up, his head twisting to look around himself.

_“Yeah, it’s gone. Just like that.”_

Dauntless frowned, and picked up his pace. “Do you think someone found her?”

_“Hopefully not,”_

Without the fear pressing down on him, Dauntless made quick time, striding down streets and tagging and zip tying anyone unconscious with a gun or weapon on them. If he got a couple of innocent bystanders, then he’d apologize later, but for now it was better to be safe than sorry.

_“Got something,”_ Assault reported, _“guy down with a shattered wrist and a lump on his head the size of a little kid’s dream ice cream scoop. There’s a phone next to him that’s been crushed.”_

“Where?”

_“Next to building 247.”_

“On my way,”

A quick glance at the faded numbers on the buildings around him let Dauntless orient himself, and he turned and started jogging.

It rather quickly became obvious that he was heading in the right direction, since more and more often he had to pause to check on and zip tie the unconscious people that were lying in the streets. 

Assault was waiting for him next to the mouth of a particularly narrow lane between buildings. 

“So?” He asked as soon as he was close enough not to shout, “what’ve you got?”

“Take a look around,” Assault suggested, and Dauntless frowned.

“This isn’t the time for—”

“I’m not screwing around,” Assault interrupted, “just… Look around.”

Still frowning, Dauntless looked around. Assault was right there, an unconscious, injured man at his feet. The broken phone he’d mentioned was crushed, almost like something had tried to fold it in half lengthwise, and there were a couple of odd, purple flecks staining both the phone, and a couple of small places on the asphalt around it. Like something had dripped there. The alleyway seemed clear enough, he thought, turning away from it with a shudder, and none of the buildings in the area seemed remarkable in any way, so what was it Assault was hoping he’d see?

“There’s an unusual substance on the phone, and around it,” he said out loud, and got an approving hum from Assault, “It looks like it heads down that alley, so maybe whatever crushed it went that way? We’ll have to check, but if we could get a sniff-”

Assault shook his head.

“Look at the alley.”

Dauntless shifted uncomfortably, “I already did. There’s nothing there.”

Assault’s posture shifted, and Dauntless stiffened.

“Looking.”

The alley, the alley. Assault wanted him to look at the alley, but _why?_ It was just a creepy, dark alley, filled with skittering things and shadows that moved when you could only see them out of the corner of your ey- oh.

_Oh._

It was broad daylight. There were no skittering things, or shifting shadows, or creepiness. It was barely _noon_ , and he could see all the way to the end of the alley, and-

In the doorway, in a hoodie that was far too large for her lanky, skinny frame, was a girl.

Wild haired, with long horns that were propping her head up against the door, and glowing purple eyes.

“You see her now?” Assault asked, and Dauntless nearly punched him.

“What the _hell_ ? This is a little more than ‘ _bioluminescent_ ’,” Dauntless hissed, and Assault shrugged helplessly.

“Hell if I know,” he said, “but that _is not_ the same kid I met last night,”

Dauntless paused, then took a step back as the purple light faded out of the girl’s eyes. Steel grey irises set in bright yellow fixed on them, and she straightened, pulling away from the door in loose limbed ease.

“We gonna have a motherfuckin’ problem?” she asked, and Dauntless noted a slight movement of the weird bowling pin looking things she was holding as she shifted her grip.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Assault said easily, and the girl relaxed.

Dauntless repressed a startled oath as the pins vanished from her hands.

“Good. Tha- that’s good…” She frowned, taking one stumbling step back as she swayed. “I wouldn’t wanna get in a fight with- with heroes… and, and Assault was… wasss…”

Her eyes slid shut and she pitched forward.

Assault lunged for her and missed, swearing as her head cracked off the asphalt.

“ _Shit_ ,” 

Carefully, Assault rolled her over and froze, staring at the dark purple liquid oozing from the scrape on her forehead. After a moment, he shook himself out of it and knelt next to her head, pulling his emergency med-kit out of his utility belt. 

It was only really an epi-pen, a wad of gauze, and a small suture kit, but the gauze was what he was after, and, after a moment’s hesitation he pressed it to the worst of the scrape.

“So. That happened,” Dauntless’s voice was dry as dust, and Assault snorted.

“Yeah. Thoughts?”

Dauntless shrugged, “Looks like whatever she was doing took a lot out of her? Hell, I dunno.”

“You should let the transports know they can start coming in,” Assault reminded him, and Dauntless swore, fumbling with his comm for a second before pausing.

“What about her? I mean, that was a master ability, wasn’t it? Shouldn’t we— _shit!_ ”

Dauntless’ eyes widened as, suddenly, the girl underneath Assault’s hand started to blur.

Her horns shifted, and shortened, and adjusted until they were wave shaped and pointed backwards. Her hair tamed, smoothing out from ‘wild’ to just ‘curly’, and a purple streak spread through it like spilled ink. Her ears changed shape, growing delicate, fin-like structures, and the rest of her body shrank and broadened until instead of the tall, lanky young woman they’d first encountered, they were looking at the broad shouldered girl that Assault had described yesterday.

“Uh,” Dauntless stared, then closed his eyes and visibly shook himself. “Nope. You get to deal with that. I’m calling in the transports.”

Assault rolled his eyes as Dauntless took a few steps away and started talking into his comm. 

Of course, it was just his luck that as soon as he’d lifted the gauze to check on the scrape underneath (hey, Changer induced healing could be a thing, and it didn’t hurt to check) that she started to stir, her face scrunching up with pain.

“Hey, um… kid, you okay?” Assault was floundering, and he thanked every single one of his lucky stars that Battery wasn’t around to see it. “C’mon, open your eyes. We gotta make sure you didn’t give yourself a concussion.”

“Fuck you an your fuckin’ concussions,” she rasped, “ ‘s too gogdamn bright. _Fuck_ ,”

Assault snickered, then dabbed again at the scrape (still there, but was it just him or was it smaller?), dodging her attempts to swat his hand away.

“Quitit,” she growled, cracking one eye open to glare at him then clamping it shut again with a hiss.

“No can do,” he said unapologetically, “you busted your forehead open pretty good when you bounced it off the road.”

“Ugh…”

For a moment she lay there, seemingly content to let him fuss over her forehead, then she snagged the gauze from him in one swift movement and pressed it into place herself.

“I appreciate the thought,” she snarked, trying to lever herself up into a sitting position, “but you’re not really my type.”

Assault stared at her for a moment, then grinned, hopping up to his feet and offering her a hand up.

She took it grudgingly, and after a few wobbly moments she was standing almost as stably as she had been when he’d first met her.

“So vwhat happened?” she asked, and Assault paused, one eyebrow going up behind his mask.

“You don’t know?”

“Do I look like I knowv?” Her voice was deadpan as she glanced around the alley, and her face flattened further when she spotted the, still unconscious, man nearby.

He was almost positive that the litany of hissing, bubbling chirps that poured out of her was swearing, and he readied himself to intervene as she stomped over, but all she did was give him a quick once over before turning to look back at Assault.

“Howv many others,” she asked.

“Injured?” Assault asked, and shrugged, “From what I can tell, none. The rest of them are all unconscious, sure, but there wasn’t a scratch on ‘em.”

She looked surprised, then relieved, then suddenly, as though realizing he was still watching her, blanked her face and stuffed her free hand in her pocket.

“So,” Assault asked, leaning against the closest wall, “got a name?”

He winced internally as she stiffened, but gamely plowed on, “I can’t keep calling you ‘girl I met last night’ in my head, and ‘hey you’ is a little informal, you know? And Purple is a b-”

“Vwiolet,” she interrupted, scowling, and Assault paused.

“What?”

“I’m Vwiolet,” she repeated, “not purple. Purple does…” She gestured down at the unconscious man, then waved out into the docks, “that.”

“All right then, Violet it is.” He said, then, “so, Violet, could y—”

“No,” Violet said irritably, “that’s not my _name_ , that’s… ugh, just… Here, look,”

And she held out the gauze that she’d been holding to her forehead, looking impatient.

Assault frowned, but moved a couple of steps closer and looked down at the gauze, then back up at her face. “What? I don…”

Something clicked.

He looked back down at the gauze, then up at the scrape on her forehead.

“You have different colored blood.” he said flatly, and got a nod.

“Vwiolet like this,” she gestured at herself, “An’ purple like before.”

Assault stared at her, and she shifted uneasily.

“Vwhat?”

“How does that even _work?_ ” he demanded, and she recoiled, scowling at him.

“Howv should I knowv?”

“I mean, that’s a fair point,” he exclaimed, starting to pace, “but just, _what??”_

She snorted, and Assault whirled on her, pointing dramatically, “That means you still need a name! How about Nemo?”

“Vwhat? No! That’s a stupid name!”

“Stripey?”

“Hell no.”

“Gills?” 

“Nowv you’re just trying to piss me off, aren’t you?”

Assault paused, tapping his chin in overacted thought as the girl scowled at him.

He opened his mouth, and, before the first syllable could leave his lips, she interrupted him.

“Ampora... Call me Ampora.”

  
  
  


“Ampora... Call me Ampora.”

_Something about that wasn’t right…_

_That was her voice, wasn’t it?_

_Who was she talking to…?_

“Ampora huh? That’s all right, but are you sure you don’t like Waves?”

_Oh. Isn’t that Assault? What’s he doing here?_

_Ugh, the sun is so bright…_

“Vwho in the bloodsoaked lowvblood _hell_ vwould think that that’s a good name?”

_Um. What?_

_Cronus?_

_“Oh thank gog… here._ You _talk to this idiot.”_

Taylor swayed, blinking against the bright afternoon sunlight as she tried to get her bearings.

There’d been another voice, and she’d decided to fight, and then…

What had happened?

_“Focus Kitten, vwe’vwe got company.”_

Taylor blinked, forcing her blurry vision to focus on the red form in front of her.

Assault looked back at her, a small smile curling his lips. “Well, I’ve definitely heard worse.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Director Piggot is annoyed, and Taylor... isn't herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In all honesty, I'm not happy with this chapter. I restarted it about six times trying to figure it out, and finally got this. By now I'm sick of looking at it, and I'd just like to move on, so here you go. 
> 
> Also, I'm sorry it took me so long. Real life has been hell lately, with stuff ranging from incredible amounts of pain to having to get what is essentially a restraining order against our downstairs neighbor. It's been a whole lot of not fun. I'm really hoping things get better soon.

Dauntless kept one eye on the unknown cape and Assault as he called in the troopers. He didn’t  _ think _ that she’d do anything to Assault, the man was almost as relaxed now as he was when they were at the Rig, but there were nearly fifty unconscious people scattered around the general area, and Dauntless wasn’t going to let himself forget that the girl was the one who’d done it. All without seeming to have moved from one spot.

_ “Dauntless,” _

Dauntless twitched, but reached up to tap his comm unit. “Go for Dauntless,”

_ “We’ve got a Danny Hebert here. Says his daughter’s caught up somewhere in all this.” _

Dauntless hummed thoughtfully, resting his eyes consideringly on the girl.

“Danny Hebert? Did he say what she looked like?”

She twitched, and Dauntless nodded to himself as the trooper said that no, the man hadn’t, but he’d get a description.

“No, don’t worry about it. Go ahead and let him through.”

_ “Sir?” _

“It’s fine, have him come our way. We’re next to building 247.”

He hummed a general acknowledgement of the trooper’s agreement, then turned his attention back to the girl’s stiff shoulders.

She’d done something pretty damn stupid, by the looks of things. It was only fair that her dad got a chance to make sure she was all right before they brought her in.

*****

Director Emily Piggot, East Northeast Regional Director of the Parahuman Response Team, stared down at the report on her desk. 

Two of the most experienced heroes in the city were currently sitting in Master/Stranger Quarantine, a newly triggered Master was running around doing  _ god knows what _ in her city, and not ten minutes ago the lab had gotten back the results of the first set of tests they’d run on the garbage that Assault had handed them.

That report was sitting next to the one from the PRT squad leader that had accompanied Assault and Dauntless, and, sighing, Emily scanned it again.

The long and short of it, apparently, was that the CDC was going to be called in and Winslow was going to have to be shut down for the foreseeable future.

That on its own was no great loss; Winslow was a pit on a  _ good _ day. If the information that the girl, ‘Ampora’, apparently, had provided was true, then it was high time that the school district had the kick up the ass it needed to clean house.

And it would let her do a little house cleaning of her own.

Her fingers brushed idly over the cell phone sitting next to a third set of papers. This one was the sworn statement from Alan Barnes, vouching for Shadow Stalker’s character, stapled to a copy of the police report that had been filed after the girl had rescued the Barnes’ from their… incident.

The phone was one of the measures that Sophia’s mother had agreed to as part of her daughter’s probation. Typically, the girl hadn’t even read the papers she’d signed, and so was completely unaware that the PRT had cloned both her personal and PRT issued cell phones.

Every call either phone got was also recorded on a secondary phone, and every text message was sent to the clone phone as well as the original.

The cloned phones were originally supposed to be monitored by Sophia’s handler, but, with the allegations, Emily had thought it might be prudent to… subtly relieve the woman of the cloned phones.

The stupid woman hadn’t even bothered to delete the records on the clone. Instead, it looked like she’d just turned it off as soon as she’d gotten it, because as soon as Emily had turned the damn thing on it had practically exploded.

Text message after text message had chimed into the inbox, and notification after notification had alerted her to new recordings being delivered.

Hess had, at least, been smart enough to keep anything incriminating off of her PRT issued phone, which was honestly more than Emily had expected, but the  _ personal _ phone was a treasure trove. Or a cesspool.

Either way, it was more than enough for her to bury not just Hess, but the Barnes girl and the idiot handler as well.

Still, that left her with the issue of what to do with  _ her _ . The new trigger.

Eyes narrowed in thought, Emily skimmed the squad leader’s report again, comparing it with the reports Assault and Dauntless had submitted from the quarantine cells.

The girl was apparently a Changer, and had implied that the Master abilities came with a particular form. If that was true, then she would be relatively easy to handle once they’d circulated a picture of her. If she was in this ‘long horned’ form, then they could safely assume that Master abilities were in play and treat her accordingly.

The fact that they didn’t know what, if any, abilities the form with wave-shaped horns had was irritating, but Assault had reported that the girl, ‘Ampora’, had promised to come in for power testing soon. If she did, then all the better. They’d be able to push the Wards and find out just what she was capable of at the same time.

If she didn’t… well, capes didn’t stay out of the cape scene for long, and in Brockton Bay new triggers got in over their heads more often than not. They’d likely either have data on her other capabilities before the week was out, or it wouldn’t matter any more.

*****

Taylor blinked, turning slowly in place to take in the room around her.

It was nice. Clean and neat, with piles of metal parts and wiring here and there that indicated that someone actually used the place.

There was a couch in the middle of the room, turned to face a television, and behind it the room opened up into another one.

Placidly bemused, Taylor watched as one of the piles of parts shifted, and twisted, then turned into a pile of oddly shaped toys in bright colors. A moment later it shifted back, and after a couple more changes, the pile seemed to settle into a weird, ghostly state where they were both stuffed toys and parts that looked like they might make a tinker drool.

Something about this was familiar.

She’d seen this before, hadn’t she?

This was her… house?

Her feet led her down the short hall, and she paused outside the only closed door.

There was a sign, taped just barely below the middle of the door.

  
  


Taylor paused.

That… that wasn’t right.

The handwriting was sloppy and childish, but the ink was written was black, not the more colorful markers that she’d used when she’d made her own signs

That wasn’t her name, either. It looked like two different people had written their names in the same place, but  _ neither _ of the names were hers.

What was someone else doing in her room?

_ Wait… _

Scowling, Taylor pushed the door open.

Contrary to the appearance of the rest of the apartment, this room was a  _ disaster. _

Metal and wiring and tools littered the floor, scattered over and around makeshift tables of cinder blocks and boards that held turntables and laptops and speakers.

A bed was shoved into one corner, the blanket dragged half off it and the pillow crammed even tighter into the corner.

_ That’s not right...  _

_...Is it? _

The laptops were on; programs she didn’t recognize were open and scrolling through data she couldn’t understand. One of them chimed merrily and a smaller white window popped up on the screen, bright blue text flashing into existence line by line.

Or… was it pink?

Taylor shook her head, frowning as she looked around her room.

“You’re back,”

The voice was neutral. Controlled.

Familiar.

Taylor turned.

“Up here.”

Course correction turned her head more toward the ceiling, and, sure enough, perched on top of the freestanding wardrobe, was Dirk

Taylor blinked, then looked curiously around the room.

“Bro? What…?”

Dirk tensed, and Taylor blinked and he was at her side.

“Taylor?”

“Hmm?”

“What’d you just call me?”

Taylor blinked at him.

“Dirk. We met a while ago, right?”

She paused. Looked around.

“How’d you get in my room?”

Something about him stilled.

“Don’t worry about it. Here, come on.”

Dirk tugged at her arm, and Taylor went willingly.

After all, Bro would never hurt her.

The scenery blurred, and for a moment she thought they were outside again, watching the fires fill the sky with smoke, but then a dimly lit white ceiling cut off her view, and they were in a house again, and Taylor was all alone again.

That…

She didn’t like that.

She wasn’t supposed to be alone, was she? Alone in this big house, with only the carapacians for company and the wine to help her forget how empty it was.

The silence was getting to her.

It was too quiet.

The glint of moonlight on a glass fronted cabinet caught her attention, and somehow she ended up holding an uncorked bottle without moving from her spot.

The first taste hit her like a truck and she recoiled, but habit had her lifting the bottle back to her lips for another sip and this time the flavours of fruit and alcohol weren’t so intense.

_ “—oxy and Dave anywhere, and she’s walking around calling me  _ Bro _.” _

Taylor tipped her head to one side, then eyed the bottle in her hand contemplatively.

She didn’t think that the wine was supposed to make her hear voices...

_ “I understand, but Dirk, have you considered what the consequences of interfering might be? We don’t have the luxury of doomed tim—” _

_ “I know.”  _ The voice was tight, low and angry, and Taylor shifted uncomfortably.

She didn’t want to be around if Bro was getting angry. That would be bad.

No, Dirk would never hurt her.

He was always too nice for his own good…

_ How did she know that…? _

The voices were coming from the other side of the door, so Taylor and her bottle wandered over toward the opposite wall.

She ducked through the archway and out onto a huge lawn, blinking for a moment in the light of the full moon, brilliantly bright even though it had to filter through the layers of smoke blanketing the city.

She could still hear the voices, loud enough for her to tell that they were arguing even though she couldn’t pick out the exact words.

It was always the worst when Mom and Dad argued. She hated it, and she hated the sick, twisting feeling she got in her stomach from it, so she drank some more of her beer and started walking.

Her whisky bottle never emptied and her feet never got tired, so Taylor wasn’t sure how long she walked. All she knew was that she passed fire after fire and building after building, and could never quite bring herself to stop.

It felt like something was missing.

Something important.

It didn’t matter though. As long as she kept walking she’d find it event—

Something hit her foot and skittered across the sidewalk with a sound like distant glass windchimes.

She stopped, forgetting the sake she’d been lifting to her lips as she looked around. 

A flash of light drew her eye and she crouched, examining the soot covered  _ thing _ with curious eyes. One finger prodded at it carefully, and when it shifted against the stone it made the same glass windchime sound that had made her pause in the first place.

Taylor blinked, then scooped the thing up and stood, inspecting it carefully under the moonlight.

It sort of looked like a star, she mused idly, like one of those ones that she’d seen on Emma’s christmas tree, all three dimensional with ‘rays’ coming off it in every direction.

Without the soot it’d probably be pretty.

Absently, she started to walk again, wiping at the soot first with her fingers, and then, when that didn’t work so well, with her sleeves.

Behind her, forgotten on the sidewalk, the martini glass glinted in the distant firelight.

The sound of waves breaking against rocks made her look up, blinking owlishly as she realized that, somehow, she’d gone from the richer area of town all the way down to the boardwalk without even noticing. Apparently she’d been more intent on cleaning up the star then she’d thought. 

Still, it had cleaned up nicely, and Taylor smiled faintly as she looked down at the shining glass.

Moonlight glittered across the edges and angles of the star, and Taylor’s eyes widened as it shifted, then rolled off her hand.

She lunged and barely caught it before it hit the ground.

“Don’t do that!” she scolded it, “Do you want to break?”

The star glimmered at her apologetically, and Taylor sighed.

“Just don’t do it again, okay?”

It shifted slightly, rocking back and forth as the moonlight played across its facets.

Taylor watched it for a moment, then shrugged. “Okay.”

The hand holding the star lifted it to her shoulder and paused for a moment, letting it settle there before she turned away from the ocean and started walking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The star shape that Taylor is trying to describe is called a Moravian Star. Go ahead and look up one made of crystal, they're freakin' gorgeous.


End file.
